


Post Apocalyptic Break Up Blues; or, Slouching Toward Shinjuku

by strange_glow



Series: Virus [4]
Category: Makai Ishi Mephisto, Weiss Kreuz
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 11:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 52,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3848518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strange_glow/pseuds/strange_glow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you believe anime and manga, at any given time in Tokyo, the world is about to come to an end. Given those odds, what couldn't go wrong?  Esset aren't the only ones trying to raise a devil.  A continuation of the AU story line I started playing with in Broken Strings.  Bad Yohji is bad. The guys are sideswiped by the chaos Crawford was so ready to set loose (seemed like a good idea at the time, no?)  into the world of Makai Toshi Shinjuku.  Aya hears of a Doctor who might just be able to cure his sister.</p><p>I've compressed the time gap between WK and WK:G because I can.  AU Fanfiction</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

          "I thought you said you didn't know anything," Ken accused as 'Yohji' lead the way down the hall to the main chamber of the ridiculously designed building.

          "That didn't mean I couldn't _find out_ something," Yuuji said in mild derision.  "Aya, take these and set them along the pillars on that side," he handed over one of the two sling packs he was carrying cross strapped on his shoulders. "The timer is standard; just a digital kitchen timer, wired to trigger the bomb.  Work fast and set the first one for 30 minutes, then minus two minutes for the next one and so on."

          Aya looked blankly puzzled.  On him it looked good, but then anything besides scowling did.  Yuuji refrained from pinching his pretty cheek.

          "Where did you get those?" Omi asked, surprised.

          "Akihabara," Yuuji said, putting hand on his shoulder and making sure Omi was looking him in the eyes.  "Now be quiet and listen to me.  This place was made as a concert hall; there's a back stage entrance behind the main stage.  Creep back there and be careful.  Watch for the opportunity to grab Aya's sister off the alter.  If any one of those three old people catch on to us, you'll think Schwarz was just rough housing with you in the play pen.  And watch out for the guy dressed in the Chinese robe; if he sees you, you're dead.  He can squeeze the organs in your body with his mind."

          "Yohji," Aya hissed at him. "What's really going on here!"

          "You heard it from Manx.  Ritual, end of the world, dark beasts, blah blah blah; now set those bombs," Yuuji grabbed his arm and shoved him around and toward the half pillars lining the hall.  "Ask questions later.  Peel the back off, stick it out of sight, set the timer.  The faster you move, the better chance we'll all have to survive," he ended with a sharp look at Ken.  "Now cover our backs while we set these, will you?"

                   *        *        *

          When Omi heard the droning on of a sort of prayer chant thing, he knew he was getting closer to the alter where they had Aya's sister laid out.  He crept closer, looking for the way onto the stage.

          Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He'd been absolutely certain he was  unseen and fell back in shock, looking around frantically, darts in hand.  No one was there.  His heart pounded in his chest.  What the heck?

          Then he heard a quiet foot step and turned again.

          The kid that had been hanging around with Schwarz stepped out of the shadows in the back stage rigging a good ten feet away from him.  "You!" Omi exclaimed, forgetting where he was.

          Nagi smirked.  "Loud mouth.  Good thing they can't hear us over their own babbling greed.  Now go to sleep."

            He didn't even take his hands out of his slacks' pockets, but Omi felt himself propelled up and backward into a pillar.  The back of his head hit hard and he slid down it, blackness drawing over him like a blanket.

          *        *        *

          Aya was setting the next to last one of the explosives on his side.  Yuuji set the last of his and pressed back flat against the wall.  "Siberian, come here," he called with quiet urgency, looking farther down the hall way as if he'd heard someone.

          Ken crept over along the wall, trying to stay out of sight.  "What is it?"

          "Nothing," Yuuji held out a small, thin spray can and hit the button.

          Ken inhaled the narcotic mist and dropped like a rock.

          Aya turned at the sound of him hitting the floor.  "Wha--?"

          "Hurry up, Aya," Yohji told him, kneeling to check that Ken was out completely.  "We've got 15 minutes to get your sister and get the hell out of here, do you _really_ want to worry about why Ken has decided to take a nap right now?" he dragged the guy up into a fireman's lift.  "Pain in the ass, he would be a lot heavier than he looks."

          "Yohji--what the hell--," Aya followed him back down the hall.

          A lean, compact figure slipped from an alcove and brought the blunt handle of a retractable sai down on the back of his skull in just the right spot. Aya joined Ken in the land of nod. 

 

          Yuuji turned, having expected something like this.  "Trade you," he said to Farfarello.

          The Irishman thought it over, a foot rocking Aya's shoulder. "Crawford wants this one dead."

          "Yeah, that Brad, he wants a lot of people dead," Yuuji said casually, "But this one's Catholic," he nodded at Ken's back side on his shoulder.  "Rosary every night, confession every Saturday."

          Farfarello waivered.

          "Besides, I'm dating that one.  Can't get God much more pissed off then laying with another man as if he were a woman and all that."

          "I'm pretty sure that's what's pissing off Crawford, too," Farfarello regained his somewhat dubious moral ground.

          "You did not just put Brad Crawford right up there with God, did you?" Yuuji said, scandalized, hefting Ken before he slipped down further and threw his balance off any more.

          Farfarello only had one eye to work, with but he could still do a good job of giving someone the stink eye.

          Yohji pushed him over the edge with a mischievous grin.   

          Farfarello put the collapsed baton through the loop on his pants and reached to shift Ken onto his own shoulders. "You're evil," he told Yuuji with a new wariness in his tone.

          "Thank you," Yuuji said, genuinely.  Then reached down to haul Aya up against his hip.  "Bombs are set to blow in 12 minutes, you might want to hurry things up a bit."

 

          "Crawford said if I saw you, I was to tell you to hit the water.  It's the only way out for you," Farfarello told him.

          Yuuji nodded, then turned and started striding back toward the causeway bridge.  There was a wall of windows near it that would give him access to the outside if he didn't make it to the doors. 

          Aya groaned, but stayed limp as he was carried away from his intended rescue of his sister. 

          *        *        *

          Not too many miles away, another ritual brought on by the rare alignment was being fought out.  Aya Fujimiya hadn't been the only suicidal nut case on the loose in Tokyo with a big damned sword. Two men fought on a 20th story roof top as lightening struck down from a dark and suspicious mushroom cloud. At first to the mortal eye, the blades seemed to be just reflecting the lightening; but then one man stood his ground and the blue aura was no reflectionas it gathered along the length of the katana he held out with his one remaining hand.  Impossibly, when the more European of the two swords struck the roof top in what had been intended a killing blow, half the building was sheered away. The building broke up, the other man and assorted rubble sliding down into the streets already alive and dying with the screams and terror of the increasingly trembling earth.  It couldn't have all been the fault of cheap concrete.  The rioting and fires Esset's plot's had sent roiling throughout Tokyo had turned the whole region into a mirror image of Hell. Now the mirror was breaking.

 

          *        *        *

          "Um, Brad, is this supposed to happen?" Schuldig asked as the building began to shake and jump violently, as if something huge was under it trying to heave it off.

          "Sort of, yeah, why?" Brad nearly lost his footing.  It hadn't been this bad in his premonitions.  What the hell?

          Schuldig looked at him with widening eyes as rubble started to rain down around them.  The floor cracked like a glacier beneath them, the gap widening with every shake.

          "Oh shit," Brad stated. /Warn everyone! Then run!/ he reached out to him.

          Schuldig broadcast a rather mentally incoherent urge rather than formed words, but the others got the message.  He jumped across the now 3 foot wide gap and caught Brad's hand.  Along with realizing how ridiculously school girl a moment it was, he was glad for the contact as they helped each other stay on their running feet against the violent rocking of the disintegrating floor.  "Are we going to die!" he yelled over the explosions from the bombs and the twisting of steel beams.

          "Mostly no!" Brad yelled back as he avoided letting a huge section of ceiling flattening them.  "But we're going to feel it in the morning!"         

         They reached the causeway and Schuldig stopped short of the now wide open view of the ocean under the setting sun, the bridge sinking into the water like a python easing into a warm bath.  He looked down the sheer cliff at the water a good ten feet below. "I hate the ocean.  It's full of sharks and shit.  Can't we just hang onto something until it stops!"

          "No!" Brad said, and pushed him over the edge.  Then put his glasses in his jacket pocket, kicked his shoes off, held his nose tight, and jumped in after him.


	2. 2

          Aya drifted back to consciousness to realize first that no, he was not at home on his own bed.  Rather something hard and yielding at the same time.  His fingers clenched into it.  Then he tried to take a deep breath and choked.  He spent the next 20 minutes gagging up the rest of the water that had gotten into his lungs, then a further few minutes with his lungs wishing he had just died if they had to ever do that again. 

          The second thing he realized was that he was missing something.  "Aya!" He floundered into a sitting up position and looked around.  Had Omi rescued her from the ritual?  He couldn't see much of anything on the beach.  The sun had just about finished setting, but the sky was clouded with smoke across the brilliant reds and oranges of a coastal sunset.  The waves washing on the shore dulled his ears as he tried to listen for anything like someone calling his name. 

          The third thing he finally remembered was Yohji. He'd done something to Ken, before--. 

          He couldn't remember before what?  Had Yohji done something to him, too?  He frowned, looking around.  His sword was still buckled on.  What had happened?

          Where was Yohji?

          No, no, not Aya _and_ Yohji!  He staggered to his feet, and looked around.  "Yohji!" he yelled, and coughed up the last bit of water.  "YOHJI!"

          "AYA?!"  Omi's voice came across the whosh-whosh of the waves. 

          He turned around, looking for the kid. 

          "Over here, Aya!" Omi waved, his pale arm catching Aya's eyes in the growing darkness finally.  "Thank goodness!  Aya, your sister is here, Sakura-chan found her in the water."

          "What about Ken?" Aya yelled back, starting the too hard slog down the beach.  It seemed like he was a mile away.   His waterlogged jeans and leather coat weighing him down. 

          He stopped for a minute, wavering on his feet. 

          Why hadn't the heavy coat dragged him down?  “Yohji?”

          Why hadn't he drowned. 

          "Yohji?!" he called again, looking behind him, then out toward the water.  "Yohji, _NO_ ," he felt what little was left of his heart shattering and fell to his knees.  

          *        *        *

          "Let him think you drowned," Brad murmured.  "Come back to me."

          "No," Yuuji said gently, looking into eyes the color of a bird of prey's.  "We agreed, remember?"

          "You know how often I change my mind," Brad smiled sardonically.

          Yuuji couldn't help smiling back.  It was one of the things they had always quarreled about. "This is cheating." He couldn't stop loving him, not ever.  But even Brad Crawford couldn't live two happily ever afters at the same time. He traced a finger up through raven's wing black hair, watching that unruly fringe fall again.  "I love you.  But so does your pretty German sex toy; and he's what you need.  Someone who can keep up with you, and all your evil plans to take over the world." 

          "Screw the world," Brad said, turning to look out the window again. "It's broken."

          "Still no ideas?" Yuuji put his hands on the sill and stepped back to stretch his legs.  The muscles were still cramping a bit from the cold dousing he'd had, along with the extra hard work of getting Fujimiya to shore without them both drowning.

          "The blank isn't filling in," Brad frowned.  "The only way I can describe it is if you had a pool of water and scooped out a bowl full and the shape of the bowl remained in the pool while the water moves around it perfectly normal. I can 'see' it, but it's an empty shape in time."

          "Creepy," Yuuji stated, shivering a little and straightened up to look at him.  "We stopped the ceremony, so why did this happen?" He watched the helicopters circling over the damaged zone.  An almost perfect circle had been sunk in Shinjuku, as yet unreported meters below the normal surface line.  But the geology in the region preclude a sinkhole; especially one this large.

          "Apparently Esset weren't the only ones with an agenda.  What will you tell him?  Fujimiya."

          Yuuji sighed. "I don't know.  He's got so many screws loose he rattles."

          "It’s not like you to put up with flaws."

          "How perfect does that make you?" Yuuji smiled slyly.

          "I have no idea why you had to harass me in the first place."  

          "Because you're just so god damned cute when you're mad," Yuuji said honestly.  "I adore you, I always _will_ , but I can see how much in love you are with Shuu," he kept his voice down, just in case someone was lurking outside the bedroom door. " For your ego's sake alone, you need him, not me.  I can't read your mind, you're too mercurial to predict and I'm over sensitive.  I get insecure, I can't deal with someone I can't connect the dots with." 

          "So you're blaming this on your talent?  'It's not you, it's me?'  How trite, Sarazawa."

          "I live on plans; I need data, facts, things to happen in order-- _you_ switch directions so fast for reasons I can't even see, it drives me nuts. And _that_ was when they had you short changed! Now, it’s like over drive.  You keep moving the mats, I can’t stick the landing.  We’d end up killing each other."

          "That's the only way I can think I'd want to go," Brad pulled out his gun and flicked the safety off, letting it hang at the end of his arm, pointed at the floor.

          "That's what scares me,"  Yuuji looked at him seriously.  "You would want everyone in that big glitzy tomb with you.  I just--want someone who needs me."

          " _I_ needed you!" Brad hissed.  "I still do."

          "You _always_ told me _otherwise_ ," Yuuji insisted.  "'Love is for fools', 'love is stupid'. Love saved your god damned ass out there, and like it or not, _he's_ the one you need.  I told you, I'll always be there for you, but I can't stand seeing you so--damned natural with him, when you were always so uptight with me! You look at him and you _know_ you're the center of his universe.  You look at me, and Jesus Christ, Brad, you killed everyone else who looked at me in school.  And most of the time, they weren't even my type!" 

          "Don't think so highly of yourself, I just wanted an excuse," Brad said sullenly, putting his gun down on the bedside table and his hands in his slacks.  He walked back over to look out the window again. 

          "See!  You're doing it again!"

          "Telling the truth?" Brad half looked back over his shoulder.  "Jealousy is so much more a socially acceptable reason for murder than 'I just wanted to shoot someone that particular day'.  I guess it's difficult for someone whose whole raison d'être is bending truth until it squeals to deal with it."

          "Scares the crap out of you, doesn't it?" Yuuji stated.  "If you admit it, he'll know he's got you.  But tell me, what's so damned wrong about that?"

          Brad went pale. " _You're_ the one who wanted things back the way they were! You're the one who wanted me to remember," he faltered, emotion washing the rug out from under him.  He drew a shaky breath and sniffed, fighting the tears back into submission. He strode over to grab up the gun again. "I don't know what to do with you."

          "Get me out of your sight and make love to him.  I know it's stupid and romantic, and please shoot me somewhere where it will only be a flesh wound if it makes you feel better, but you're human, too."

          The bedroom door opened and Schuldig stepped half in, leaning on the door frame, looking grim.  "Good idea.  Make up your mind or I'm leaving," he said.  "Kill him or let him go bang Fujimiya if he wants to.  I'm sick of putting up with this, Brad.  You're making a total ass of yourself."

          "Oh, fuck," Brad stated, looking even more harassed. 

          Schuldig shrugged.  "Up to you.  But I'm getting this headache.  It might end up being permanent."

          Brad glared at him. "Schuldig..." he warned.

          The redhead looked at Yuuji.  "Leave.  If all you are worried about is parting friends, go.  I'll tell you quite frankly, right now, he's more worried I will tell him to kiss my little round ass good bye," he smiled at  Brad.  "You're broadcasting, mein Mann."

         The glare increased, Brad's thumb twitching near the trigger.

          Yuuji caught his wrist and pried the gun free, setting it aside.  He pulled Brad to him and kissed him.  "You'll always be my first sweetheart." He drew away slowly, not wanting to.

          "Asshole," Brad accused.

          Yuuji smiled sadly and took a few steps back. "Let me know what comes next, okay?  Meantime, I'll go feed Kritiker a line of bull." He turned to make good his escape, shutting the bedroom door behind himself.

          Brad sat down on the bed and put his head in his hand, a mournful sound welling up out of his unwilling throat.

           Schuldig sighed and moved to sit beside him and put an arm around him.  "I  love you," he whispered.  "Even if you did break the world."

           _"Idiot!"_ Brad said harshly.  "This isn't my doing.  Someone else summoned something."

            Schuldig looked at the images Brad showed him in his mind.  "Interesting.  I wonder what's to be done about that?"


	3. 3

          Aya was sitting beside the hospital bed his sister lay in when the door opened behind him.  He didn’t think it was anyone but another nurse, with yet another injection or machine check. 

          She was stable, but no other changes, despite her dunking in the ocean. Tomoe-san didn’t really remember how they had ended up on the beach, though.  She said one moment the building was coming down and the next, she was laying on the beach with the back of Aya’s robe thing held tightly in her hand.  Omi had just assumed it was Sakura who had saved her. 

          A hand landed on his shoulder.  “How is she?”

          Aya started up in shock, and threw his arms around Yohji.  Then the water works started.

 

          Yuuji held him, just letting him get it out of his system. 

          “Where have you been?” Aya finally demanded through the sobs and snot.

          Yuuji bent them both to one side far enough to reach the little box of cheap tissues on the table beside the bed and handed them to Aya.  “The paramedics had me off to a hospital,” the lie came so naturally, he half believed it himself.  “They had tubes down my throat for a while.  I must have inhaled half the ocean.”

          Aya blew his nose a few times while looking at him.  It was cute and gross at the same time, Yuuji smiled.  Maybe that was the attraction here.  Aya was all over the plate, not in neat little pyramids of geometric color and taste.  Earthy, rather than a step down from the Heavenly Bridge.  Maybe it was just that he was falling in love again.  A new mystery, even if the old one was still unsolved. 

          “You saved me, didn’t you?” Aya asked.  “Why didn’t they take me, too?”

          “I’m not so sure about that,” Yuuji said, serious again.  “Sit down and blow your nose again, you’re a mess.  And you have snot on your chin.”

          Aya blushed and Yuuji got a hateful look tossed at him.

          Well, there was that, too.  Like Brad, Aya was all sharp edges, no misty grays.

          Aya sat down and mopped himself up.  “Well who else would have?  I had my coat on, my sword, I should have sunk like a rock.”

          “That’s what I’m saying,” Yuuji told him.  “ _Someone_ gave us all a hand in surviving.  Now who that was or why, I don’t know, but have you seen what happened to Shinjuku?”

          “It’s all over the news,” Aya said.  “Who cares.”  He took Yuuji's hand.  "It’s only Shinjuku.” He grabbed another tissue and wiped at his nose one more time, looking up at Yuuji.

          “Manx been around to say anything?”

          “No.  She showed up with Omi when I was still on the beach, Persia is dead,” he said quietly. “Esset got to him.” 

          More like Brad, Yuuji thought. 

          “At least the hospital bills are still being paid,” Aya looked at his sister.  “Manx said she’s contacted the other organizations.  I’ll—probably have to go back to Crashers.  And there was some talk of overseas.” He fell silent, his grip on Yuuji’s hand tightening. 

          Yuuji gave the unconscious girl a speculative look.  Lots of things could go wrong in a hospital.  No more sister, no more bills, no more Kritiker….

          Aya reached over to take his sister’s hand with his free one. 

          Yuuji sighed.  He couldn’t do that to the guy.  It had to be old age settling in, or more likely, the effects of the brain washing and all that ‘women’ stuff. 

          But he _could_ break up this pity party.  He caught Aya by the arm and tugged him to his feet again.  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said to startled purple eyes.  “With your luck, your innocent baby sister would wake up just in time to find me bending you over the end of the bed.”

          “Yohji!” Aya was shocked.

          “You’re quite the prude for someone who _assaulted me in the work place_ in the first place, Fujimiya, my wanton little criminal.  Now that you’ve stopped oozing junk out of that pretty nose, having nearly died makes the idea of having socially inacceptable and possibly even public sex with you pretty good right now.”

          Aya frowned as he was pulled out of the room.  “You’re doing it again,” he said.  “Even your accent’s changed.”

          “Teasing,” _Yohji_ cooed at him.  “Have you eaten at all in the past two days?” The guy looked like a head on a stick sometimes. 

          Aya tossed his hair out of his eyes with a shake of his head.  “I—just didn’t feel much like anything.” He stopped them both short and caught his arm so they stood face to face in the hall way.  “I thought you were dead,” he said.  “Yohji—I—don’t want to lose you,” he put his arms around him again.  “And I don’t want to have to go where Kritiker tells me just to pay my sister’s bills.  I don’t know what to do!”

          Yuuji held him, rocking him side to side gently.  “That’s not going to happen,” he assured him.  He reached up to stroke the hair away from Aya’s right ear and pressed his lips close, speaking softly.  “I can promise you that.  Nothing is ever going to happen to you that you don’t want to happen.”  ( _You_ rat _, you know_ his talent _protects him, taking credit for that is pure—Rosencruz training_.) (Shut up, brain, it’s not _your_ turn to think here). “I’ll be there for you.”

Aya pressed his lips to Yohji's fervently.

Yuuji smiled into it and kissed him back. He was content with his decision.  Aya was right for him the same way he was certain Schuldig was right for Brad. And Brad _never_ would have kissed him in any possibly public place, for the scandal of it.  He kept his preference in with his expensive suits.  Yuuji was demonstratively inclined; 'touchy feely', an 'invader of personal spaces', a 'public menace', _and how long was this comparison of Mr. Hot Pants here to Brad going to haunt him?_

Aya came up for air when Yuuji was beginning to think it might not be so bad to drown again. "Will you?" he asked.

Yuuji's brain was still in park.  "Um?" He was too busy wandering what it would be like if eyes could fuck because--well because.

"Be there for me," Aya said, sparks starting to sizzle as his temper was set off.

"Sorry; that kiss," Yuuji said, "More," he pulled him back again. Probably a good thing they were already in a hospital, the oxygen equipment was right on hand.

Aya broke it off this time, too. "I'd do it again, too." He licked his lips, eyes half closed.

"Do what?" Brain cells--dying--.

"Bathroom stall. Now."

Yuuji let himself be pulled into the nearest men’s room.  Oh where had this gorgeous boy picked up such awful habits? 

 

                   *          *          *

          Brad set the phone down and laughed. It was the sort of low, rolling chuckle that made Farfarello perk up like a Labrador hearing the hunting rifle cabinet unlocked; Nagi sigh in disgust of wasting another evening killing some moron; and Schuldig wonder if he had enough lube left in the tube, or should they stop at the conbini and get more?

          "They don't know what happened.  It's pure chaos," Brad purred, then laughed again. "It's too much for them, everyone is scrambling for control.  They never thought someone else might beat them to it."  He absolutely could not help rubbing his hands together in glee, despite the effort.  He made himself quit and put them flat on the table. 

          “Is Papa Brad happy?” Tot asked with all the intelligence of a balloon leaking air.

          Brad’s right eye twitched.  “Tot, I’ve told you _not_ to call me ‘Papa’.”

          “Why?” she said.

          Nagi looked at Brad pleasantly—under cold hard eyes, daring him to shoot her and find out where that got him.

          “For one thing, I’m too young to be anyone’s father.” (Completely overlooking the real reason here.) “Also people might mistake you for Nagi-kun’s sister, and that would be very awkward. (Third, I’ll shoot you!)  And it’s more socially acceptable to call me ‘older brother’ or ‘uncle’.  Now go play.”  (In traffic or with razor blades or something inadvisable for small children under the age of 3.)

          “That’s a good idea, isn’t it, Tot?” Nagi said, knowing when to step in.  “Let’s go to the park and make fun of the other kids.” 

          She giggled in glee bouncing up and down and clapping her hands.  “Nagi, you’re so mean!”

          Nagi tossed his hair out of his eyes and contrived to look cool and evil, but she’d grabbed his hand and was dragging him to the door before he could finishing posing.

          When the door to the suite had shut, Brad shivered and took his glasses off to rub his face. “It’s like that episode from the Twilight Zone. I’m going to end up with my head in a Jack-in-The-Box, or worse, in ‘the other place’.”

          “Don’t be silly,” Schuldig said, half sitting on the little table out of habit (the habit of knowing it put his rump right there in Brad’s line of sight.)  “He was only thinking of deflecting the bullet.  Mostly because he knows how mad it makes you to miss.”

          “I thought I told you to make her stop being so—stupid!”

          Schuldig frowned.  “Not advisable at this time.”

          “What are you, a Siri clone?” Brad put his glasses back on and looked up at him. 

          “Trust me, the kid’s got issues, and a reason for said issues,” Schuldig looked disturbed.  “Just—don’t ask.  You don’t want to know. And _no one_ is telling Nagi. They need to invent brain bleach.”

          Brad frowned. 

          "Back to business,” Schuldig said briskly “I sensed an 'and' in there somewhere. With Esset, there’s always an ‘and’.”

          "We're to investigate the mess in Shinjuku.”   

          "You didn't tell them your talent isn't acting on this?" Schu said carefully. 

          "Of course not, any more than they know you took the blocks off it.  However I did inform them that because the area has effectively isolated its self, and the combined Japanese and American military has cordoned it off until further notice, that it may be a while before I can do anything.  Ah, and here's our next problem, since that one has been _very_ effectively cock blocked by reality."  He picked up the phone again and gave it a chance to ring once.  "Crawford," he said dully. 

          *        *        *

          Yuuji leaned on the bathroom counter, while Aya dried his hands under the blower, and wondered how long his back was going to last at this rate.  He wasn’t going to be able to live down to his current ID’s birth date much longer with this sort of thing going on. 

          “Pull yourself together,” Aya turned to hike up Yohji’s pants for him, and button and pull his zipper up (alarmingly fast).  “You’re such a slob sometimes.”

          Yuuji pushed his hair back and turned to look at the mirror.  It was the industrial (cheap) polished metal kind, probably a good thing, but he really wanted to see how bad it was getting under his eyes.  Aya was turning out to be some sort of incubus, he just knew it.  “Food.  Now.” He articulated.  After that particular course of gymnastics, he felt reduced to sentences of one syllable and happy to still be functioning at _that_ level.

          Aya smiled, happy.  On him, it was creepy.  “You’re right, I’m so hungry now.” 

          (‘I’m surprised; you just downed an entire future race for an afternoon snack,’ Yuuji’s brain sassed.) ( _Shut up_ , Brain!) (If he says ‘and then let’s go shopping!’, I’m out of here.) ( _That’s enough_ , Brain!)

          As they stepped out into the hall, and got a few scandalized glares from the nurse’s station (had they been that loud?) Yuuji’s phone started to ring.  For once he was glad the tone wasn’t ‘Do you think I’m Sexy’ and pulled it out of his pocket to answer it.  Ah, the screen was cracked.  Damn it, Aya.  “Hello?”  He pressed the button, hoping it would work. 

          “Kudoh,” Manx’s voice said.  “Weiss has a new mission.  Where have you been?” 

          “In the hospital, thank you very much for asking,” he stated.  “I just tracked down _Abyssinian_ at yet another hospital.  We can be at the shop in about—“ he looked at his watch, glad his particular choice of weapon kept him from ditching his watch for a phone’s constant time.  “20 minutes. No, make that 40, with everyone re-routing around the Big Hole in the Middle of Tokyo.”  

          An irritated sigh brushed the speaker on her end.  “I’ll be there.  Waiting.” The call ended.

          He looked at his phone, then sighed himself and opened the back of it to pull out the battery, the chip and the data card, then chucked it in a passing trash can. “You owe me a phone, Fujimiya.”

          “It’s your own fault for keeping it in your back pocket,” Aya stated leading the way to the exit.

          “Cheapskate!” Yuuji complained. 


	4. 4

Yuuji looked over the files.  Standard Rosencruz set up.  So, they’d put one their nests here, in preparation.  Ah, nostalgia, right down to the preposterous uniforms. 

“You’ll be getting a new team member,” Manx announced.  “Izumi Sena-kun will be arriving tomorrow.  He’ll be replacing Omi as the junior member.  Omi now has responsibilities elsewhere.”

Omi started to protest, but Manx gave him a look that shot all that down.  He huffed in frustration and kept his mouth shut.  He looked like an irritated toy panda.    

(‘That would be a result of the death of every adult Takatori...’) Yuuji turned another page in the file, ran his eyes down the print out—and froze.

Shit.

He shut the file and tossed it on the little table in the cellar room, forcing himself to take a deep breath and move naturally.  “This mission, why put us in undercover if you already have so much?” he said in a very calm voice.

“We want to put an end to Esset, gut them from the world,” Manx stated.  “This is their training ground in Japan.  For three years, they’ve been taking extraordinary youths and turning them into killers.  And training them by having them practice on their classmates.”

“And where did this Izumi Sena come from?” Yuuji asked coolly, sitting down on the sofa next to Aya. 

“That is not your concern, Kudoh.”

He licked his upper lip, nodded,  and then kept his mouth shut on that line of questioning after all, despite his temper.  “Alright then, what’s the plan?”

While she explained the details, he was having a minor crises. 

The woman in the photo in the file.  The fact that Esset would spread like this without most field agents knowing.  Another generation of talents—was Brad even aware of this?  The woman wasn’t talent that he’d noticed, but she was an old classmate, they’d even had missions together.  And she would definitely recognize him. 

Blah blah blah, what the hell was Socks going on about.  “Wait, _what?_ ”

“ _Art_ , Kudoh!  Were you even listening?” Manx said in exasperation.  “Or is your mind on some date you have planned for tonight?”

“Art?” he said blankly. 

“Your record shows you have some talent for sketching.  You’re going in as an art teacher. Pay attention if you ask what a mission is!”

He held up both hands, “Sorry, I was just thinking how tough it must be for this kid you’re sticking us with.” He let his hands fall back onto his knees.  “And why does Omi have to be transferred, shouldn’t he be here to help break the new guy in? Someone closer to his own age?”

“Don’t think, Kudoh, it’s not your job,” she said brutally as Omi opened then shut his mouth again after hearing _that._

“Funny, Birman used to say things like that,” Yuuji said, looking directly up into her face.  “Where’s she been lately, anyway, we haven’t seen her in a while?”

Manx’s jaw flexed, then she lowered her eyes.  “Birman was killed a few months ago.  We’re still investigating.”

“Ah,” Yuuji said.  And they were in the hands of these people, who couldn’t solve pretty much most of the murders their own suffered?   Or be bothered to?  Izumi Sena, hmm?  Someone should look into the kid’s background. He remembered the Izumi name belonging to some murdered politician, wasn’t it?

Aya looked at him, mild suspicion written in his face. 

He thumped Aya on the thigh sharply with the back of his hand to get _him_ to pay attention to the briefing. 

Manx picked up where she left off. 

“Me!” Aya said when informed he would be passed off as an history instructor.  “I didn’t even get to go to high school!”

“It’s simple.  Read the books the night before and then tell them what you’ve learned,” she said with finite patience and a dash of sarcasm. 

“I take it you don’t want him teaching the Gintama version,” Yuuji said ruefully.

Aya couldn’t help snickering, “But I like that one better,” he said behind his hand, blushing shyly at this personal admission.

Manx wasn’t happy.  “Since when do you two not take any of this seriously?”

“I would say we’ve finally broken under the stress,” Yuuji let out the subtle tendrils of his talent to its fullest extent.  “We nearly died out there, I spend two days having sea water pumped out of my lungs, and now Shinjuku has become very strange.  Things have—become absurd beyond belief.  The only way to deal with it is to laugh or go mad.” He stood up to lay a hand on her arm and look into her eyes.  “You’ve become very brittle in the past few months, Manx.  Birman was a friend of yours, no?  And now Persia? (Ah, there it was, something clicked, like the tumbler in a lock.  A slight tick in her eyes.  He’d scored a direct hit.) You must have worked with him for some time—that forges a bond.  Surely they gave you time to mourn,” he said gently.

She brushed his hand off and turned away, her voice sounding strained.  “You have your brief, the paper work is being set up.  Aya will go in to Koua first, then three weeks later, you will be placed.  We have to be careful this time, there aren’t enough agents to back you up, but Crashers will be assisting us,” she started for the staircase. 

“Why are they moving me out of Weiss!” Omi whined when the door had shut.

“This whole thing is weird,” Ken said, pacing the floor.  “I don’t like it.  We still don’t even know if those guys survived.  They could be out there, just waiting for us to slip up.”

“Kritiker is running on a skeleton crew, things are bound to be disjointed,” Yuuji said thoughtfully.  “Aya, tell me all about Crashers.”

“Why?” Ken turned to look at him from the bottom of the stairs.  “Manx isn’t the only one acting weird.  You’ve been strange since you came back from going A.W.O.L. after seeing that doctor.”

“Ken-kun is right, Yohji,” Omi said from where he sat in the arm chair.  “It’s like you’re not you anymore.”

Yohji hauled up the sleeve of his t-shirt to expose his tattoo, “Who else would get something _this_ stupid permanently on himself, hunh?” he smiled ruefully.

“Who’d be that stupid in the first place?” Ken asked.  “You can’t get into very many health clubs or onsen with that thing.”

“I’ve survived,” Yuuji let the sleeve drop and picked up the file folder.  “Well I’m going to get something to eat, it’s been a long day and after that hospital stuff, I can’t seem to stop wanting to eat real food.  Aya?”

Aya got up and smoothed down his orange sweater over his blue jeaned butt.  “Yakisoba, or okonomiyaki?”

“Nothing so cheap, Cheapskate,” Yuuji tugged one of his ridiculous burgundy side locks.  “I was thinking of filling up on roasted pork and Chinese noodles and going to sleep with a full tummy for a change.  And _not_ being woken up every four hours to be dosed with anything some nurse seems to have laying around and just wants to practice on helpless me.  Ken, Omi, coming with, or is this just a date for us two?”he put an arm around Aya’s shoulders, making it clear that yes, Ma’am, it was. 

“Pass,” Ken said, giving him a cold look.

“I guess—I’ll get my stuff packed,” Omi said quietly.

“Ah, Kiddo,” Yuuji looked down at him.  “We’ll bring you something back with us. You can always have it tomorrow.”

 

*             *             *

 

“Yohji,” Aya said quietly behind him, putting  on his non-mission jacket, a khaki color duffle coat.  “What _is_ going on with you?  And why do you have that file,” he noticed Yuuji was still carrying it down low at his side.  “You know that information doesn’t leave the room.”

“Hmm?” Yuuji said, and then shook his head, “I was just thinking.  I wanted to review the mission some more.  Omi’s going to be busy, Ken never cares ( _or trusts the information_ ) and you, well,” he smiled disarmingly, “You’re with me.”

“Why put us on a long term undercover mission, that’s not our directive,” Aya was still talking quietly.  “Put your coat on, it’s cold outside,” he took the tan leather out of the closet and held it out.

Ah, so cute!  Yuuji slipped an arm into one sleeve and then switched the folder in his hand, finished putting on the jacket himself.  “Who’s acting like a different person here?” he looked down into those purple eyes. “All blushes and concern.  What happened to the ‘just die, Kudoh!’ Aya? we’ve all come to know and avoid getting murdered by?”

“Whatever you think you’re doing it’s not working,” Aya informed him.  “You can’t sweet talk me past this again.  I want answers.  Why ask about Crashers?  And I’m driving so you’d better talk or I’ll wreck the car just to spite you.”

He would too, the psychopath. “In the car, then,” Yuuji promised. 

“Talk,” Aya stated when the Porches’ engine growled into life.  It sounded as angry and irritated in nature as Aya often had back before he’d found an outlet for his frustrations. 

Yuuji took out a pen light and opened the file on his lap.  He found the photograph and held it up so Aya could look at it.  “I know this woman.  And she’ll know me on sight.  The whole investigation could come down around us.”

“Trust you to have banged some woman who’d be pissed off to see you again,” Aya said bitterly.

“It’s not like that, Sweetheart,” Yuuji said and déjà vu, how many times had that line popped out in the same situation with a certain someone before.  Except that the heart shaped face he had nicknamed for Brad the first time he’d met him sort of made the endearment out of place when used on Aya’s aristocratic mug. He’d have to try a few new ones out.  Ah, now he was sad. Combined late hour and hunger, add a dose of stress and impending doom, and there you were, depressed.  He wondered what Brad was doing at the moment.  The urge to call was almost as addictive as those damned cigarettes.  “Which reminds me, we need to stop so I can get some more nicotine patches.”

Aya glanced at him for that randomness.  “You were explaining, Kudoh,” he growled in that voice of his. 

“Let’s put it this way, she might not have wanted to kill me at the time but if she’s working for Esset (hell yes, she was, and getting paid, unlike certain ‘if he’s not dead, then kill him’ agents, he thought bitterly) things will go bad fairly quickly.”

“Did you sleep with her?” Aya snapped.

Yuuji’s hackles went up.  This had to be nipped in the butt (not bud, that was too tender a sobriquet for this hot tempered ass) now before it got on his nerves any more.  If he wanted more of this, he’d go back to Brad.  “Aya-kun,” he said oh so sweetly, “Where exactly did a nice upper class boy like you learn to fuck like a crack whore?”

The car swerved half way across into the oncoming lane, causing horns to honk, breaks to squeal and more than one heart to think of jumping ship and to hell with the body it was in. 

Yuuji remained completely calm, knowing Aya’s bizarre talent would spare them even if the Porsche got it. 

Aya righted the car just in time to avoid an oncoming long haul dekotora diesel all gussied up with neon and chrome attachments; the driver’s look of raw terror evident in the light of the chandelier in the cab.  He recovered enough to hit his tuned air horns.  Somehow the 1812 Overture  didn’t quite do the moment justice.

“I just—um—read a lot,” Aya said quietly, bright red before the lights left his face in the shadows again. 

“We will not discuss my sex life before ‘us’, is that clear?”

“Yes,” Aya said, keeping his eyes firmly on the road.  Another passing car showed his cheeks were still glowing with embarrassment.

Yuuji suspected that Aya had _quite_ the fantasy life before that moment in the flower shop.  That and he _so_ had to go through Aya’s book cases now. 

“Alright then,” Aya said, like he was trying to be very brave and sensible about it.  “Will you have any trouble  killing her?”

“If it comes to that, I’ll do what I have to do,” Yuuji was pretty sure it _would_ come to that, but he knew who could tell him for certain, right down to where and when. 

*             *             *

Brad growled and turned over, rolling to one side to grab the damned phone off the bedside stand the third time it started ringing without a message being left.  “What is it, you heartless shit?” he snarled.

“Whoah, are we up to _that_ stage already?  Can’t you just skip to the ‘fond memories and how could we have ever been so young and stupid’ part of getting over me?”

Schuldig sighed an annoyed-as-hell sigh and got up to go lock himself in the bathroom. 

“It is nearly midnight and _some of us_ have to answer to _real_ bosses in the morning.”

“Koua Academy ring any bells?”

“Why the fuck should it?” /Schuldig, get back here!/

/Go to hell!/

“Try to be professional, Swe—Brad.  I’ve got a problem here that might be a problem for you as well if it goes down the way Kritiker is planning.”

“Now what?” like he could care.  /Schuldig!/

The telepath send him a graphic mental image of what he could do to himself. 

 _Damn_ telepaths. 

“Remember that little ash blond with the beauty spot beside her mouth, Moria Riverside, from when we were all in those straight business classes together.  The one who had the thing for me that you _didn’t_ shoot?” 

“No.  And we’re having old home week why?” Brad grumbled. 

“Don’t be such a grumpy cat,” Yuuji said. 

“You are _ruining_ my make up sex!” Brad informed him brutally through clenched teeth.  “The make up sex you suggested I perform.  I am way more than ‘grumpy’.” 

/Fucked, Brad, you are FUCKED, as used as an EUPHEMISM! _From now on_!/

/If you’re going to yell at me, why lock yourself in the bathroom, you moron!/ Brad thought back at him.

“Ah come on, it’s an excuse to try again—harder,” Yuuji said, then laughed softly.

/So I don’t murder you, you _asshole!_ /

“There’s a very special hell for people who make puns,” Brad told Yuuji.  And another for people who date telepaths.

/I _heard_ that!/

“Damn,” Yuuji said.  “You’re laying there all sweaty and naked, aren’t you?”

Oh?  Brad’s eyes narrowed.  “And your point?”

A soft little sigh met his ear.  “Yeah, my point,” Yuuji said.  “Moria worked together in intelligence for a while at the UK office, she’d remember me.”

Yes, well it was hard to forget a tall, blond, green eyed Japanese with a built in golden tan and the legs of a thoroughbred, the miserable bastard.  /Schuldig, get out here./ he tried projecting a little less demanding and more—what was that word— _reasonable_.  “Can’t this wait until morning?” He pushed his hair out of his eyes.

/Fuck yourself, this German is out of order!/

“And get caught talking to you? It’s bad enough I don’t have the excuse of sneaking out for a smoke or a drink any more, let alone a woman.  He’s very clingy.”

“Sounds like a personal problem you’ve got there, _Kudoh._ ” Brad taunted him.  /I’m going to count to ten and I want your ass back in this bed right now, Schuldig!/

/FUCK YOU, BRAD CRAWFORD!/

Brad winced.  It was probably a good thing the neighbors couldn’t hear that.  On the other hand maybe they had. 

“Well, it turns out that Koua Academy is the Japanese Rosencruz, and Kritiker has assigned Weiss to break it down.  And check this, ‘Maria Brookside’, is listed under ‘International Student Administration’,” Yuuji was saying.  “Sounds like our cruentus mater has branched out.”

"I really have no problem with Weiss killing them all," Brad decided. 

"Sweety, do me a little, tiny favor," Yuuji wheedled.

"No.  Thanks to you, Schuldig is mad at me, there’s a blue haired retard bouncing around my current home, and I'm strongly beginning to suspect it's _your_ fault Shinjuku is out of synch with reality."

“He’ll get over it; shoot her; and _no_ , it’s not my fault a major chunk of Tokyo decided to drop a few meters in to the ground and warp time or whatever,” Yuuji said.  “I just need to know how this is going to go down, and at what point to put the boot in for the least amount of spectacular fail.  Are you saying your talent isn’t up to it?”

Brad snorted. 

“Come on, Brad, I thought you cared.”

“I used to, but then you died,” Brad said airily.  /Schuldig, come on!/ he almost, but not quite pleaded.

A barrage of anger and violence was projected at him.  He quickly blocked it out.  Damn it.  His little honey pot was seriously mad this time.

“ _Oh come on!”_ Yuuji was exasperated now. 

“You’re just a ghostly voice form the past.  Alas, I don’t do ‘nostagia’.” Brad hung up on him. 

The phone rang five seconds later. 

He waited.  The bathroom door remained shut.  He picked up the phone.  “If I tell you will you leave me alone!” he demanded. 

“Actually, it’s good to hear your voice, too,” Yuuji said softly.  “You sure you don’t want to introduce Schuldig to Fujimiya on more—social—terms?”

“I doubt very much that Fujimiya is his type,” Brad growled.  “And we’ve already seen what messing with nature on that level has lead to.”

“You’re right, no breaking the law of redheads,” Yuuji sighed.  “What about Hidaka?” he said in sudden desperation.

“Who?” Brad was getting tired of this.  “What exactly are you calling me back for if it’s just to try and get me to break up with your replacement after you’ve dumped me?”

/ _Replacement?!_ / a fist hit the bathroom wall. /Crawford, you arrogant _fuck!_   I’ll ‘replacement’ you!/

“Okay, they want to send us in deep cover, for a long term mission,” Yuuji explained the whole plan, from what he understood of it, and finished with “Technically we’re assassins, not undercover agents.  And, I might add, that this is all sort of _your_ fault, because _who’s_ been systematically offing Kritiker agents?”

“Alright,” Brad said dully.  There was only one way he was getting through this night alive and with any sleep at all.

“And get this, Aya never finished high school and they want him to pretend to be a _teacher_?  He’s practically a feral child!”

“So?  Teachers just read the book the night before anyway,” Brad was getting sleepy. “Everyone knows teachers are the biggest cheats in education there are.  After all, what sane students says ‘I know, I’ll be a teacher’ after 12 years of being ground into dust intellectually?” He had a list of ex-instructors he still wanted to shoot.  Too bad the rules had specifically stated: No Killing Instructors.  Demerits will be taken.  He’d already had enough shit on his permanent record. 

“Funny you should put it that way,” Yuuji said slowly.  “He’ll be found out in less than a week, won’t he?”

Brad chuckled.  “You have no faith in your little trophy fuck, do you?”

“Killing people, yes, _not_ killing students, no.  Although, the way it looks, these brats might need culling.”

Brad thought it over, then sighed and let his talent pursue the possibilities.  After eight different paths, including one very randomly set farther in the future than he would think possible, he gave up.  “If you follow Kritiker’s plan, you’re screwed.  Blow the place to kingdom come day one.  Don’t even make contact if you can avoid it at all.  And it’s possible other members of Weiss are now expendable in the timeline, so I wouldn’t worry about keeping any of them alive.  Now can I get on with my life?”

“Is that all?  No nasty surprises?”

“Oh _come on_ , Sarazawa, life is _made_ of nasty surprises,” Brad had to laugh, given what he’d _seen._   “Just roll with it like you always have.  It’s just not right to tell you _everything_.  That would just be cheating.”

“Damn it, Brad—!”

Brad hung up on him, pulled the battery out of his phone and set the pieces on the bed side table.  Then he got up to go break down the damned bathroom door. 

One kicking, yelling and fighting German forcibly pinned to the bed minutes later, he made up for having his make up sex interrupted. 

As usual, Schuldig suddenly had no problem with the situation. 

The neighbors, however, were not happy. 


	5. 5

“Look who’s out of bed,” Ken commented, shoveling in another mouthful of breakfast. "And forgot to put pants on. Again."

 

Yohji pushed his sleep tangled hair back, briefly considered cutting it all off, re-committed to the ‘Desperado’ look, and got out the coffee to make a fresh pot.  No major life decisions before coffee.  Especially not about the hair.

 

“Yohji-kun,” Omi said, “Izumi-san is going to arrive any minute, don’t you think you should put some clothes on?”

 

Once again he remembered he didn’t smoke any more and sighed.  He got the measuring cup and started putting water in the coffee maker.  “We’re all guys here, Omi, which you should consider before you wear that _blouse._   And there’s no point in getting dressed if I’m going to take a shower.”

 

Ken looked up at the ceiling as the water stopped running in the bathroom.  “I’d say it’s your turn now, Mr. Naked.”

 

“Not until I’ve had my coffee.” Yohji stated, sitting down to wait.  He put his elbows on the table and his face in his hands to hold himself up until the elixir of life was done brewing.  Maybe he should have put his pants on.  And maybe he should keep the extra nicotine patches in his pocket.  Yeah, that would work.  Or maybe he should just go A.W.O.L. again for a while and detox completely.  Because if he didn’t chain himself up in a basement somewhere in the woods, he would definitely tear everyone’s throats out after a few days.  Damn that fucking mad doctor!

 

Uneasy with silence, Omi got up and turned on the little radio on the counter and tuned in the news. 

 

“…mysteriously malfunctioned and went down just after dawn today on an inspection tour of the Shinjuku disaster area.  Authorities are now working to determine what happened. We’ll be following events as they progress.

A Greenpeace vessel has attacked the Scientific Research Vessel, Sushi-maru…”

 

Omi rolled his eyes, got up and turned the radio off again.  Then he tried to start washing dishes before Ken was finished eating and nearly got a fork through his hand.  He sat down again and twiddled his fingers, then started knocking his sneakers together. 

 

“Omi,” Yohji stated.  “Did you take Stay Awake again last night?”

 

“NoI told you, it’s natural,” Omi protested.  “I’m just an energetic person.”

 

“Go jog around the block,” Yohji got up to pour his coffee.  ( _Before I wring your neck_ ).

 

Omi looked harassed and got up.  “I’m going to get the shop ready, since no one else seems to be interested in working anymore.”

 

“Around the block,” Yohji said, pulling age rank.  “Twice.  Before you implode or something.”

 

*        *        *

 

Brad put his newspaper down, and looked at his phone buzzing away on the table beside his slowly cooling breakfast. 

 

“More bad news?” Schuldig asked, still half asleep. 

 

“Let’s just say, things have gotten awkward,” he picked up the phone before Schuldig’s fingers got a grip on it and swatted him with his free hand, ”Crawford here.”

 

Schuldig smiled sleepily at the warning look and settled back down to drink his coffee. 

 

“I see.”  “And where did you get this information from?”  “Classified as usual.  Don’t you think it would be a good idea that if _I’m_ to provide security, I know who is responsible for the information in the first place?”  “Oh, very funny, considering my talent is only a few minutes into the future at best.” He shot Schuldig an ‘I told you so’ look.  “Shinjuku?  No, I’ve got the paper, early edition.  It wouldn't be in this one.  I’ll check into it.  We’ll be there around 1 pm.  No, it’s impossible without reviewing the data files first, and you need to accept that.  We will be there at 1 pm.  Send a car, then, and good luck with the traffic.” He ended the call and set the phone down.  “Asshole,” he muttered.  “Nagi, news.  Shinjuku, all hell breaking loose.” He picked up his newspaper again and went back to considering the stock market prices.  “Hmm, at this point, I could _buy_ Rosencruz and sell the entire estate to some aging British Rock Star to destroy.”

 

“After we have sex on the piles of money.  _You promised,_ ” Schuldig reminded him.

 

Brad looked at him over the paper, a playful smile curving his lips.  “Bills or cash?”

 

“Casssshhh,” Schuldig said with a delighted shiver. 

 

“Stop it,” Nagi stated, not even taking his eyes off the computer screen as he crunched through his breakfast cereal. "Trying to eat here."

 

Tot sat beside him looking at them over her fried rice omelette, which she insisted on and Nagi had (pussy whipped, according to Schuldig, _of all people_ ) made for her every morning since her 'rescue'.  "Tot doesn't like all this fighting," she stated.  "Tot doesn't care if you rescued her from Weiss.  Rabi-chan says you're bad men."

 

Brad slapped his newspaper down, making her jump in her seat. "Schuldig, adjust her." He ordered the telepath.

 

"I am not a 'flashy thingie'," Schuldig said between munching another piece of bacon with his fingers. "You can't just make me keep re-doing memories."

 

"Why not?" Brad asked blankly, having been around Tot _way_ too much lately. 

 

Schuldig looked at him carefully, then turned to her, waving a half strip of bacon around for emphasis. "Tot-chan, we were not fighting last night.  You had to train in Schrient, no?  You can't train without it seeming like real fighting.  However, Rabi-chan is patently bad.  I've never liked that look in his eyes." He squinted at the stuffed rabbit she now clutched to her chest.

 

Her eyes went even wider.  "Rabi-chan isn't bad!" she declared loudly. 

 

"I don't trust him," Schuldig stated. 

 

"Rabi-chan isn't bad!" she said even louder.

 

"He's bad because he's pink," Schuldig stated.

 

"No! No, no, no!"

 

"Schuldig...." Nagi protested. 

 

"Well, now you see!" Schuldig said.  "I say he's bad because he's pink, you say we're bad because you _heard_ us fighting.  Is Rabi-chan bad?"

 

She blinked.

 

Everyone held their breath (except Rabi-chan, who if he had had lungs, they would be collapsed by now).  "Tot made a mistake?"

 

Schuldig nodded very seriously.  "That was all it was.  Just a mistake."

 

"Is Tot going to be punished?" she whispered in a voice that was so unlike what they were used to, it was a bit of a shock.  

 

"Of course not," Brad said.  "People don't get punished for mistakes around here.  ( _Just shot and dispossed of_ ).  Now eat your breakfast.  You're going to help Nagi today and you need _all_ the brain fuel you can get." 

 

Nagi rolled his eyes, then found the artical on the news screen.  "A helicopter went down into the Chuo Park area—and get this!" he said.  "With the _Prime Minister_ and some American General.  No explosion was seen, but there’s no phone service to make contact with survivors, and because of the strange cloud cover over the park, no visual.  Rumors are already starting online. Here! One of the other helicopter pilots told a friend that when he tried to follow it down, the damaged helicopter seemed to blur strangely just before it hit the cloud layer, and he over shot the site avoiding the turbulance.  There's already a forum for it.  Hell City Shinjuku.  Posts are going nuts.  Monster sightings, people daring to sneak down in--this is insane!"

 

Farfarello who had been eating his breakfast quietly avoiding the usual morning drama, stood up to lean over Nagi's shoulder.  "Sounds like vacation time," he commented.

 

"Perhaps," Brad said, sipping his coffee.  "I want a report on the more confirmable phenomena by the end of the day.  In the meantime Jei, Schuldig, and I will inspect Koua Academy's defenses.  Someone has spilled the beans on a possible attack by Weiss.  We're to make sure security is tight and possibly head them off.  Now I wonder how _that_ particular kitty got out of the bag."

 

"Sarazawa?" Schuldig asked.

 

"Shiny new precog fresh out of puberty?" Brad looked at him.

 

"Someone actually inside Kritiker got tortured into blabbing before being disposed of in the recent clean up sweeps before the big party?" Nagi said dryly. "You paranoids."

 

"Possible," Brad admitted.  "Well, we won't know until we take a look around." He set his coffee cup down and folded the paper with a sigh.  "Still, the Prime Minister--that's going to cause a lot of squawking and feathers flying.  Fortunate, though.  I'd rather have the 'authorities’ do the preliminary work before I dip my toes into that mess."

 

"Yes, considering you just got those expensive new shoes hand made," Schuldig drained his coffee mug and started collecting the dishes.  "But do _I_ get a dishwasher; no."

 

"The hotel might disapprove of us making major alterations to the suite," Brad reminded him calmly.

 

"There is a portable one on wheels for catering companies on Amazon Japan and you know it!  You just don't want to spend money on anyone but yourself!"

 

"Guys..." Nagi warned.  "This goes on all the time," he told Tot.  "It's called Marriage.  This is what's known as 'the honeymoon is over'."

 

"Nagi," Brad warned sharply. 

 

Nagi grinned evilly over his keyboard and kept scrolling through the posts on the forum. 

 

*        *        *

 

“Izumi Sena, Code name: LaPerm,” the youth bowed, introducing himself.  “Thank you for having me in your group. Please be my guides.”

 

Yuuji looked at the youth and felt even more of his own drain away.  What was he 5?  Pedo bear was strong with this one.  If anything he was even more petite and girlish than Omi.  “Manx, are we going to be going after a lot of child predators, or specializing in breaking into elementary schools from now on?”

 

“You seem to be having some problems with the choice of missions, lately, Balinese,” Manx said, finally using his code name.  “Perhaps you’d like to have a chat with the current director about your position in Kritiker?”

 

“Maybe,” he said.  “With everyone getting killed, there might be an opening for a nice cushy desk job, no?”

 

Ken snorted.  “I can just see you as Persia,” he said.  “ ‘From now on, we will save only women over 18’ or something like that.”

 

Manx looked at him as if he had appeared out of nowhere. 

 

“Nice try Ken,” Yohji said.  “But what about the innocent children?”

 

Ken sulked.  “You know what I mean!”

 

“Please,” Manx held up her hands, “No more of this unnecessary nonsense.  We have a delay on the mission.  The documents we need to fake your positions in Koua Academy are not going well.  Apparently there’s been a security change and the previous information is not going to work.  Bombay, I realize you must be stuck in the middle at this point, but your transfer has also been delayed,” she shot Yuuji a look. 

 

Yuuji kept his mouth shut. 

 

“My sister,” Aya said, “What has been decided about her care?”

 

“As long as you work for Kritiker, be assured, the bills will be paid,” she told him.

 

“And if he gets killed?” Yuuji asked.

 

Aya looked at him in shock. 

 

“You never asked, did you?” Yuuji looked at him.  “ ‘What happens to my sister if I fall off a building chasing helicopters with a katana and go splat’ ?”  he tapped Aya on the end of his nose, then looked at Manx. 

 

“It’s understood, isn’t it?” Manx said.  “Kritiker will continue to take care of her.  Unless of course, something happens in your relationship with Kritiker while you are still alive.  Traitors deserve nothing.”

 

Aya was silent on this one. 

 

“I’ll accept responsibility,” Omi said, out of the blue and very gravely.  “After all, it was my—my family that caused her injuries.”

 

It seemed this meeting was turning into one awkward moment after another, Yuuji thought, and looked over the new kid.  Between Nagi and Omi, he looked like half way.  Dark, but fluffy.  Why ‘LaPerm’, were they running out of cat names?  Why not Rag-Doll, or Tonkinese?  He’d once amused himself by looking up the whole list of officially accepted breeds, but those were all he could remember that weren’t agents he knew.  “So how long is this delay expected to be?” he asked.

 

“A few more days, unfortunately,” Manx said. 

 

What Yuuji wouldn’t give to have Schuldig on hand at the moment to read her mind for him.  Perhaps being forced into remaining a member of a team for so long had given him a taste for being able to just tap in to the competencies of others.  “So, we just sit and wait?”  


“Yes,” she said.  “Show Sena-kun the ropes, get used to his abilities.  And be ready to move at any time.”

 

When she was gone, they all looked at the kid.  “Might as well move him into your room, Omi,” Aya said.  “You’re all packed.”

 

Omi looked at Aya, then said nothing, motioning for Sena to come with him up the spiral stairs. 

 

“He offered to cover your sister’s hospital bills, you could say thank you,” Ken told Aya. 

 

“It’s not as if I would be around to hold him to his word,” Aya said gloomily.  “I don’t feel like messing around with flowers any more.  Let’s go take a look down into Shinjuku.”

 

“Ah, no,” Yuuji said.  “I’ve got a better idea.  Why wait for Kritiker to get off their asses?  I don’t know about you guys but I don’t feel like putting my head in a meat grinder, not after last week.  Let’s just jump the gun.”

 

Ken took to it like an otter to water.  “You mean just go in and bust the place up?”

 

“Well short of playing Wagner through loudspeakers, yeah,” Yuuji smiled.  “How much 50/50 fertilizer do we have?”

 

“We’re going to need more cleaner,” Aya said. 

 

“Kitchen timers?” Ken held up a finger.  “By the way, Kudoh, what the hell did you pull back there in the sea platform?  I’ve got some pretty big chunks of wtf going on about that.”

 

“No idea,” Yuuji said, completely, totally, 100% ignorant of what Ken was ranting about. ( _Yeah, right_ )  “Must have been something those creepy Esset guys did.  Let’s keep Omi out of this,” he said.  “He’d blab to Manx faster than the school girls will find out Sena-kun’s blood type.” He looked at his watch, “Which should be in about 45 minutes.  Little guy’s gotta learn the ropes,” he grinned.  “Ken, go get the timers, about 30 of them if the school is that big.  Aya, grocery store; chlorine bleach, outdoor strength.  I’ll start getting the containers together and lay everything out so we can work assembly line style.” 

 

“What if Omi asks what’s up?” Aya paused half way up the stairs. 

 

“I’ll just tell him I’m teaching you guys how to make bombs and we’ll probably use them later,” Yuuji said.

 

Aya ran this through his burgundy head and nodded, then went upstairs. 

 

*        *        *

 

“Dear gott, it’s Rosencruz redux,” Schuldig murmered aloud under his breath, looking over the photographs in the file.

 

“Why are you wearing that stupid hat?” Brad asked him.

 

Schuldig tipped the peaked brim black leather pseudo military cap jauntily to one side.  “You don’t like it?”

 

"I'm not really sure I'm into Nazi chic,” Brad said sardonically. 

 

“Says the man wearing Hugo Boss.  It’s Visual Kei,” Schuldig corrected. 

 

“Why is it every damned weird ass piece of strange shit you put on goes under the heading of ‘Visual Kei’?” Brad nagged, making quotey fingers at him.  “I’m beginning to think you don’t even know what Visual Kei really is.”

 

“Well, it’s not Mori,” Schuldig said snidely.  “Would you prefer I call it Dark Lollita?”

 

“Just stop,” Brad told him.  “I mean it.”

 

Sensing something horrible was about to happen, Schuldig took the hat off and stuffed it into the pocket of his over coat protectively.  They were crossing a bridge with an arm of the sea under it.  He didn’t like to think that his new hat would have gone out the window, but Brad had that look in his eyes, and there was no trusting him when he got that look. 

 

“Hmph,” Brad noised and then looked out the window at the passing view. 

 

“Nagi’s been smiling more, have you noticed?” Schuldig said to distract him from the hat.

 

“Yes, it’s rather creepy,”

 

“It’s not creepy, it’s sort of, I don’t know, like a mile stone. He has someone to take his mind off himself now, that's what it is.  Suddenly he's a member of the human race.  Instead of some sort of--pokeball monster, waiting to level up."

 

  "Why are we even having this conversation?"

 

"I was _just saying_ ," Schuldig said.  /The driver is worried about 'us' discovering something./

 

/Wait until we're parked, I'd rather not die in a car crash/ Brad's mental voice was as sardonic as his vocal one.

 

/Let's mess with his head the old fashioned way/ Schuldig thought wickedly.

 

/Leave the driver _alone_ , Schuldig./

 

/Fine.  I bet if it were Sarazawa, you’d have done it in a minute./

 

/Give me the hat, Schuldig./ Brad held out his hand. 

 

/NO!/

 

/Then shut up./

 

/I am shut up, so _nyah!_ /

 

Brad looked at him.

 

Schuldig grinned back at him.

 

Brad decided that everything he could do at this moment would be counterproductive, and went back to enjoying the view. 

 

*        *        *

 

The homemade bombs would have to do.  Placed at strategic support points in the main building, they would serve to set off enough damage through fires and smoke along with any structural collapse.  This would drive any surviving people into the open where they could be either rescued or picked off.  Yuuji wondered if he had lost his ‘edge’ for being Kudoh a little too long.  There had been a time when he didn’t even think of the people he was destroying on a job.  It was just ‘a job’.  Now all the politics and disassociation psychology in the world wasn’t letting him off the hook on how many of these kids were just cover for the criminals. 

 

He was about to break a rule.  He stood over the table looking down at the composite map of the school.  “We go in when the kids are supposed to be in their dorm rooms, and target only the main buildings.  According to the data, the teachers are not all in on this, so ID the ones who are, and locate them….”

 

“There are only three of us,” Ken said. “How are we going to do all that in the confusion we’re going to be causing?”

 

“It’s been done,” Yuuji stated.  “We just have to move smart and move fast.”

 

“Yeah, in movies!” Ken protested. 

 

Yuuji looked at him.  “Ken! Hit the fucking fire alarms!  It’s a _school_!  There will be bombs going off, fire and smoke, okay!  Alarms will add to the trauma and get people out.”

 

Aya laid a hand on his arm, his hand cool and strong on his skin, and it shocked him a little to realize he _had_ been losing it.  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “Sorry, I’m just—trying to keep this all together.”

 

Ken blinked.  Yohji apologizing? 

 

Yuuji tapped on the map.  “We need to concentrate the explosives in the main buildings, which if you notice, are away from the dorms.  They probably don’t want people just randomly poking around certain parts of the campus in ‘off hours’.  We’re talking kids here; all noses, all ears, all looking to see what’s being hidden from them just because.  If we draw the normal kids away from the attack, the only ones left will be the ta—troublesome ones who are being trained to be soldiers.”

 

“You mean like Schwarz,” Aya said gravely.  “Magic or paranormal powers or something.”

 

Yuuji looked at him.  “Paranormal,” he said quietly.  “The red head, he’s a mind reader, and he can fuck up your perception.  Aya, you already know the one with glasses can see where your sword swings are going before you even move.  The kid’s a telekinetic, all his strength is in his thoughts; if he can focus on you, he can crush you.  The one eyed punk rocker type is some sort of hunter, he can track  you like a predator.”

 

“How do you know all this?” Ken asked.

 

“Observation,” Yuuji stated.  “Too much weird crap going on when they’re around.  Would you have believed me if I told you anything about before Shinjuku sunk into the ground?”

 

“I’m still not so sure I believe it,” Ken said after a moment.  “Drugs maybe, sleight of hand type magic; some kind of extreme training.”

 

“Sure, whatever makes you feel safe,” Yuuji said.  “As long as you keep your guard up and be aware that shit can happen.  Remember, you got your ass handed to you by Shrient the first time around just because they were women and you were holding back.  You hold back on these kids, they’re going to kill you like you were just a video game character, no remorse.”

 

Omi came half way down the stairs, “Guys, it’s getting pretty hectic up here.  We need Aya to yell at the girls.” His eyes went wide as he saw the low folding table full of what had been ice tea plastic bottles and now had timers and wires duct taped to them them.  “What is going on?”

 

“Bomb making class,” Yuuji said.    


“You didn’t tell _me_?” Omi’s lower lip was very near trembling. 

 

“Well, you’re—sort of—leaving,” Ken said.  “And you had Sena-kun to show around. 

 

“We’ll be using them on the Koua Academy mission,” Aya stated. 

 

Yuuji wanted to kick him.  Too much explanation.

 

But Aya followed it up by starting up the stairs.  “You stay down here,” he leaned over to tell the other two.  “You know how they get when we’re all up there.”

 

“How are we going to keep him from noticing we’re all going out tonight?” Ken asked Yuuji.

 

“Well, not wanting to upset Sena on his first night here, Aya and I are going to check into a love motel for some ‘quality time’.  And you’re going to go see a movie,” Yuuji informed him. 

 

“Ugh, did not need to know that,” Ken stated.

 

“Ken, we’re not really going to a love motel.” Yuuji wondered about him.  One too many soccer balls to the head?

 

“Why couldn’t you guys just go to a movie, too?” Ken complained.

 

“I suppose we could come with you, but all  that hand holding and dare I say it, kissing in the dark…”

 

“No, no, no, no, no!” Ken had his hands over his ears and his eyes squeezed shut.  “Just keep your homosexual agenda to yourself, Kudoh!”

 

“You just enjoy that imaginary movie without us, and I’ll keep my imaginary agenda to myself,” Yuuji chuckled. 

 

“BUY SOMETHING OR GET OUT!” Aya roared up stairs. 


	6. 6

                Farfarello slipped out of the trunk of the car and into the bushes when they stopped for the gate check. 

            Schuldig blanked out the guards and the driver's minds to this event even if they hadn’t seen more than a brief flash of something out of the corner of their eyes.  It was enough to trigger suspicion on Esset trained men’s parts and Brad wanted this to go off as clean as possible. 

            /Now?/ Schuldig asked.

            Sigh.  /Now./

            Schuldig slithered into the brain of the driver, who suddenly found himself thinking about way too many things while he drove up to the campus administration building.  Schuldig toned down the panic attack and settled in to just watch the thoughts he had triggered go by. 

            /There is a lab, under the main building,/ he reported.  /Esset has been kept out of the loop on ‘the doctor’s’ [Schuldig showed him the image of a dark haired  woman in a lab coat in the mans’ mind] experiments.  They’ve all been threatened with death if we discover anything.  A bit odd, don’t you think, considering they must know what our talents are./

            /I’m not so sure Esset’s remaining drones have been kept up with what our talents really are,/ Brad thought.  /Only the Three really knew everything.  And they would have kept a lot of things to themselves.  Like the chance for immortality.  Remember the ‘guest list’?/.

            /Yessss, half the top level weren’t on it.  Bit of a purge there./

            /Anything on what the lab is all about?/

            /No, simply that there are supplies that come and bodies that go and certain people are aware on certain levels that this is something ‘they did not see’ and no one else should either./

            Brad smirked.  /Esset’s version of ‘what you don’t know can’t hurt you’.  What you don’t know can kill you so fast you won’t feel a thing, so don’t worry about it.  I wonder if this has anything to do with what Masafumi was up to?  Esset was very keen on his genetic research until he got into the whole plant thing./

            /But I would _like_ the idea of being able to photosynthesize,/ Schuldig looked at him.  /Sometimes deciding what to eat is so boring, and if you get stuck on a mission in the middle of nowhere—/

            /Two words, Schuldig.  Green.  Hair./

            Schuldig frowned.  /That was an accident!/

            /Now imagine all of you being a sickly green./

            /Racist./

            /Yes, _human_.  Knowing _you_ , you would grow tentacles, too— _Again_ , we are having this bizarre sort of conversation when we should be focusing on what we are here for!  Stop leading me off into your random little brain!/

            /Leave bread crumbs and don’t eat the shingles next time/ Schuldig thought back at him. 

            /I’m going to stomp up and down on your hat and then shoot it full of holes./

            /Hat-chan says you’re a baaad man!/

            The driver noticed the evil smile on Brad’s face and assumed it was for the structure of the school.  “Impressive, isn’t it?  Over 4,000 students, with the best facilities.  This way gentlemen.”

            /He’s all warm because it’s a knock off of some obscure rediscovered Speer blueprint that wasn’t classical enough to make it to the shovel./ Schuldig remarked.

            /I do like his classically influenced work.  This is more like something he had to do for his own school work under orders from some teacher and threw away right after./  Brad acted like he was expected to, hands behind his back in a casual sroll, looking around critically.

            /Jah, it’s like someone drank all night and was told, “make me something—eh—Frank Lloyd Wright-ish; here’s the money” and this was the result of the hangover./ 

            /Now you’re just making shit up./

            /Ah, pay attention, Brad, here come the big wigs.  Bet you wish you’d worn gloves./

            /Shit./ Brad thought.  Every last one of them was expecting him to shake hands.  Fuck that; when in Japan....

 

            *          *          *

           

            Sena hung over the cash register counter looking like he’d been dodging traffic on foot on the Autobahn.  “Is it like this _every_ day?”

            “Except Sunday,” Omi said.  “Then you only get the ‘true believers’.”

            Sena looked at him.

            “The girls who are trying to get us declared a shrine,” Omi said dully.  “Supposedly if they come in and all four of us are here—you know, like wishing on a falling star, if you can say it more than seven times before the star winks out, you get your wish? With us, it's before one of us leaves the room.”

            “Where do they _get_ this _stuff?_ ”

            “Student desperation,” Omi tapped on the porcelain manekineko with a cluster of little maneki-kittens at its base on the counter.  “She’s been stolen fifteen times, usually around big tests.  And Spot has to be watched like a hawk,” he pointed to the calico cat cowering on a high shelf that held the more upscale vases.  “She’s learned not to come down during after-school rush hour. But we do sell a lot of single flowers during exams; if they wear them they think they’ll get better grades.  Personally, I think it’s just aroma therapy.  You’re going to get stuck with a ‘lucky flower’, by the way.”

            “You’re not going to miss this, are you?”

            “I am!,” Omi said, surprising even himself.  “I’ve worked with Yohji-kun and Ken-kun for over two years. And Aya-kun may be prickly but he’s sort of—calming down lately.” He didn’t want to say why just yet, but someone should probably warn Sena-kun.  “Erm—are you very new to Kritiker?”

            Sena did the math, elbow on the counter, chin on hand.  “This is my tenth month,” he said, a little depressed sounding.

            Omi didn’t want to ask what had brought him into the organization.  He’d learned early that it was a never a good idea to look into pasts in Kritiker.  They came out when they came out.  “So what are your strengths?”

            “Hand to hand, and the chakram.  And looking like this,” he added miserably. “Kudoh-san hit that one on the head.  I suppose Aya-san gets all the—“  he made the gesture for ‘gay’ with his free hand, “jobs.” 

            Omi blushed.  After clearing the shop with manners that in any other place of business would permanently damage their reputation, (and only seemed to be making the girls giggle worse now days) Aya had stomped upstairs. He’d come back down, collected a bouquet of half dozen roses, this time the golden ones, and left.  That meant he was going to see his sister.  “Aya’s—complicated.  His sister is in a long coma; basically living dead, so don’t mention her.  He’s using her name, but he’s not as girly as he looks.  Did Manx brief you on his skills?  Aya is from an old Samurai family.  You know, the cut you down in the street just to test a new blade Samurai?  Not the rescue a poor village type.”

            “Ah, _that_ Fujimiya family, the one that used to have ‘undue influence’ on the royal family?”

            “Could be, he’s got the attitude,” Omi grumbled. “He’s also got the sword, so be careful, he’s sort of—psychotic?”

            Sena’s eyes widened again.

           

            *          *          *

 

            /Well, that went well, they’ve all relaxed,/ Schuldig notified him as he turned to walk into the building. /They expected us to behave more like the Three.  Your distaste for shaking hands with mere mortals is working to our benefit.  Bowing like a ‘normal’ person put them at ease./

            /Tell me something I _don’t_ know, Schuldig./

            /You’re just as pretty from behind as in front, mein Mann./

            /Shut up and pay attention to your job./

            /Boring!  The doctor is hurrying to head us off—I mean ‘greet us’.  If you want to make her piss herself, ask her about the clones./

            /Clones?/ Brad was slightly alarmed. 

           /Yes, clones./ there was an over tone of anger in Schuldig’s thoughts coming through as well. 

            Brad was entertained now.  /Oh, do let’s give her a taste of her own medicine./

            /Is there something I should know about the clones?/ he'd picked up on the low static wash of a vision in Brad's mind.

          /Not our problem. Weiss will deal with it.  We _really_ need to let Sarazawa handle this./  "Dr. Tsuji, how very nice to meet you.  Though it seems a waste to have such an excellant geneticist playing babysitter here in a mere school."

           /Gott, you’re evil,/ Schuldig murmured in his mind, watching her sense of self security go shattering like cockroaches in sudden light. 

 

            The rest of the tour was boring to the point of monotonous for someone already immured to Esset’s thinking.  Under that criteria, there really was nothing unusual about the school, other than it’s propensity for brain washing and suicides.  Dr. Tsuji studiously avoided any references to her work; why she was here, and what she was doing.  Only that she had been placed here in preparation for whatever the Three had in mind and like all the rest of them with the spectacular failure of the ceremony, she was now at a loose end. 

            More immediately of concern were the students who seemed to think that they going to take over the school.  To Brad’s thinking that meant the teachers here were weak, control was lax, and someone had a screw loose.  If Rozencruz had been run like this, the whole system would have collapsed along with the Third Reich. 

            /Interesting.  Kid has no discernable talent, but for some reason he thinks _he’s_ the next King of the World?  Sort of rules out Principal Shimojima, doesn’t it?/ Schuldig commented as they met yet another ‘class S’ student who mentally sneered at them for being ‘old and useless’ in the coming world.  /Overlooking one thing, aren’t they?/

            /Ah, innocent youth,/ Brad thought back at him.  /The delusion that because you are young, you can’t die, and yet that you will never be old./ “Dr. Tsuji, I would like a hard copy of all the files for the S Class students before we leave.” He said in front of the little guy named Todou who had started tagging along with them for some reason.  “Naturally Esset is most interested in those who are excelling in their studies.” He gave the kid a pleasant smile that didn’t make it to his eyes. 

            /Ouch,/ Schuldig said in his mind.

            / _Stop_ that creepy sensation of stroking my brain, you’re giving me cold chills!  The last thing I need right now is for my teeth to start chattering!/

            /But I _love_ your brain, it’s so— _Evil_./

            /Find a new word while you’re at it,/ Brad made sure his boredom was broadcast thick enough to smother the telepath’s over excited mental state. 

            A flicker of annoyance tripped through his mind as Schuldig got himself back under control. 

            “Surely you must have something of interest here to relieve the tedium of dealing with children on a daily basis?” Brad asked Dr. Tsuji. “It must wear on the soul, all these empty heads to fill, when you could be working on something more challenging to your skill level.  Unless you’re using the little monsters for genetic research,” he went so far as to tease. 

            “Training the students is very rewarding,” Dr. Tsuji said, her jaw set, eyes dark with hidden irritation. 

            “According to the financial records the Admin here have spent a large amount of money on lab equipment.  It’s good to see Esset backing training for a more technical future.  I’ve always felt that the emphasis on raw power was leading to more trouble than it was worth.  Science, however, has more of a ‘bright future’ glow to it, doesn’t it?” he smiled. 

            /Well played, mine Mann.  If this were an anime, my nose would be bleeding,/ Schuldig snickered in his mind.

            / _Settle down_ , Schuldig, or I’m getting you a prescription for atomoxetine./

            /You’re hitting every warning button in her head, but she’s dithering on the edge of her own ego.  She’s open to the possibility that you are on her side in this. Go for the killing blow!/

            /Get rid of the kid/ Brad ordered. /Nothing spectacular, just gone.  We need her alone for this./

            Todou suddenly had to excuse himself. 

            /Classic pee break urge, freshman year telepath training;  good for getting rid of security guards, secretaries, nosy neighbors and other gate blockers/ Schuldig droned. /We need to get seriously drunk tonight, I’m going to have nightmares about being back in school again anyway./

            /Do it,/ Brad ordered.

            Schuldig grinned and took Dr. Tsuji by the hand and looked into her eyes, startling her with the odd, out of place tenderness of the gesture, and the intensity of his tiffany blue gaze.  Then her eyes rolled up in their sockets. 


	7. 7

Yuuji heard the text message alert on his phone and pulled it out to look at it.  Damn it!  _‘Chicken shit, call like a man!’_ He keyed the icon to open the message, read it over twice to make sure he had it right, then deleted it and put the phone back in his pocket. 

 

            “Another old girlfriend?” Aya glared at him from the work counter, stabbing another stem support into a block of absorbent floral black rather viciously.

 

            “How much _was_ I drinking before I quit?” Yuuji countered, opting for stupid is as stupid does.

 

            Aya looked exasperated and finished up the arrangement he’d been working on with a two-piece, hollow fake rock that wrapped around the green block and anchored it with a handful of polished river stones.  He looked at his watch. “Ken must have hit traffic again.” He grabbed the little camera and started taking shots of the arrangement.

 

            “No sweat,” Yuuji said, setting the watering can back on its shelf.  “We’ve got a few hours to go.  Why don’t I take those two orders and run them out now.”

 

           “And if you get ‘stuck in traffic’?” Aya shot him a suspicious look, an angry growl in his voice.  “Convenient that you offer to do deliveries in that gas eater of yours after getting a text message.”

 

            “The sad fact is that I can’t even remember who that was,” Yuuji laughed mildly.  “And what about you?  How close do I have to watch you around little miss missing kidney?” He untied and pulled off his green apron and hung it up on the rack next to Ken and Omi’s. 

 

            Aya went pale.  “What are you accusing me of.  She looks so much like my sister they kidnapped her!”

 

            “She’s also got the hots for you so bad that even getting kidnapped and half drowned doesn’t stop her from stalking you. And trying to ‘make friends’ with your sister to get close to you.  Hard to do when someone’s in a coma, but the girl is determined.  Think about that, my greedy little sex fiend.  Someone might corner and jump _you_.” 

 

            “I’m going to be sick,” Aya seriously did look nauseous. 

 

            Whaoh.  _‘Who knew,’_ Yuuji thought.  He did the only thing he could think of.  “Sit down and put your head between your knees,” he forced Aya over to the bench.  “I was only teasing!” he wondered if he should have him breath into a paper bag or something? 

 

            “Just _go_ , you _jerk,_ ” Aya said to his feet.  “And prop the door open.”

 

            Yuuji hoped that didn’t count as an attempt to kill him, though maybe it came pretty close when you thought about it. “I’m gone.  Please don’t lock me out.”  He grabbed one of the rope handled wooden carry crates, put the two arrangements and their paper work in it and hauled butt out of there, pushing the cast iron kitten playing with a yarn ball where it would hold the door open so Aya  could have some fresh air. 

 

            *          *          *

 

            The black Mercedes sedan was waiting a block up from the second delivery, and with a space empty in front if it available on an otherwise crowded street.  Pre-cogs, Yuuji thought.  Never a dull moment.  Especially when combined with a telepath.  He pulled the Seven over and parked, then got out and steeled himself to walk over.  It didn’t work.  He was never getting over this.  “Brad,” he leaned on the car door to look in at him. 

 

          “Sarazawa,” Brad sounded like ice would if it could be sexy in a suit.  “Slight change of plans.”

 

            Hope flashed then died as he realized he was being silly and desperate in thinking anything but Koua Academy was the subject matter.  “Slight?  As in sarcastic big major change Crawford-style ‘slight’, or slight as in ‘slight’ as defined in most dictionaries?”

 

            “Sarcastic,” Schuldig threw in from the passenger side.  “As in ‘oh my god we’re all going to die!’ ‘slight’.”

 

            He leaned lower.  “Sex toy, pretty as ever.  What’s with the hat?” 

 

            “Leave the hat alone,” Schuldig growled. 

 

            “I like it, it’s you.  Sort of ‘Nazi’s just want to have fun’ thing going on there.”

 

            “Sarazawa, stop it,” Brad stated.  “And it’s not _that_ drastic, as long as we remain coordinated.  But if we don’t take this out now, it could become that drastic in the future.”

 

            Yuuji focused on him again.  The urge to touch came with the sight of him.  It would be so easy—but there was Schuldig; and the way Aya had sat there looking ill over something so silly still nagged at him.  He had to stick by his decision.  His hands grasped the top of the car door tighter.  “So, talk fast. I have to get back.”

 

            “Overly jealous, is he?” Brad said snidely.

 

            “You said it yourself, he’ll hunt me down and kill me.  I like that in a man,” he smiled.  _Oh god, did that really just fall out of my mouth?_   He’d just challenged Brad to do the same, he knew it.  _Just fucking shoot me now._

 

            But the gun stayed in the jacket.  Instead, Brad handed him a rather thick folder of print outs.  “Read up. None of these children appear to be any sort of talent, just highly intelligent and from socially well placed families. They’ve been programmed into a cadre and gotten the idea that they are the ones in charge.  Koua Academy is specializing in grooming the future puppet leaders of Esset’s New World Order, and we all know how _that_ goes.  But this Tsuji woman needs to be put in her place before she gets too big for her Jimmy Choos.  She’s working on cloning.  Esset will not approve to start with, and we don’t need them sending out another team to investigate.”

 

            Someone sounded a little territorial there. Yuuji opened the folder and quickly sifted through it, pausing on Dr. Tsuji’s file and Brad’s notes in German in the margin.  “Yeah, this wouldn’t fly with the old crew.  They were all into the ‘holistic man’ being superior.  Scary to think that a bunch of back-to-the-land health nuts nearly took over the world.”

 

            Brad started the car.  “Mind your toes,” he said coolly. 

 

            Yuuji backed away, any thought of maybe getting in one little souvenir caress knocked out of his plans by nearly having his foot ran over.  “See you later,” he said, wondering if he sounded as sad as that had to his ears, or if he was just imagining it.

 

            “Just deal with your side of the fight,” Brad shot him a cold look.  “This isn’t a date.”

 

            Too bad falling to his hands and knees, sobbing and pounding his fists and head on the tarmac wasn’t an option.  Nor was buying a pack of cigarettes and smoking them all up in one go with a couple of bottle of Johnny Walker to rinse the taste down. But he sure felt like it.  He sighed and went back to his own car and got in to turn the key. 

 

 

 

            “The drama never ends in that man’s head,” Schuldig commented aloud.  “What _is_ this thing with Fujimiya?” he wondered.  “It’s very conflicting.  Simpler to kill them both.  If I could find some way around little Mister Lucky’s passive talent.”

 

            “I thought you approved of the situation,” Brad glanced at him then got his eyes back on the road.  “Yuuji’s changed.  He’s integrating the two personalities, his own and the false one that became his life after the amnesia.  I don’t like it, but there it is.  It’s better to let his mind recover on its own, he’s had enough inerference.  He’ll stabilize if they let him. If they push him, which I won’t allow,—well, never mind.”

 

            Schuldig looked at him, watching him go through the simple every day motions of driving, mind occupied elsewhere and very much blocked off to him. That frown was becoming permanent.  “You like to think your heart is a shriveled up little black lump in your chest that just happens to be useful for pumping your blood, don’t you, you big squishy sentimental bastard.”

 

            “If you don’t stop wearing that hat, you’re going to get a receding hairline.” Brad said with precision viciousness.

 

            *          *          *

 

            Ken was back, and Aya looked ready to kill someone when Yuuji walked into the flower shop.  Yuuji tilted his head and looked at him, “Seriously?  You’re _still_ jealous?”

 

            “Took you long enough,” Aya grumbled.  “And what’s _that_?” he pointed to the folder.

 

            Yuuji slapped it down on the picnic table and proceeded to lie like the expert he was.  “I found this on the seat of the Seven when I came out from the second delivery.  Our mysterious benefactors again?  I looked through it.  It’s a stack of students and staff of Koua Academy, and _very_ interesting reading.  Someone has pointed out our prime targets for us.  I don’t know whether to be worried sick we’re being set up, or grateful that someone wants this place down as much as Kritiker does.  As long as things are going our way, maybe we should take advantage?”

 

            “Who the hell would be helping us?  This crap has been going on ever since we tried to take out that satanic thing on that fake island!” Ken said, leaning to look over Aya’s shoulder as he sat down to look through the print outs. 

 

            “Stop breathing on me, Ken, or stop breathing,” Aya warned. 

 

            Ken moved aside and sat down on the bench as well.  “This makes no sense unless someone else does want to destroy Esset.”

 

            Aya frowned at the papers, not so much the content, but the presumption the file offered.  It was way too tempting to believe after their rescue from the sea that someone out there was on their side for whatever reason.  Then he tried to read the notes in the margin, a fine pen and a very neat hand, but not English. 

 

            “Where are the kids?” Yuuji asked, hanging up his jacket and walking over to stand beside Aya.

 

            “Omi’s giving him  a tour of the area.  Markets, conbini, school.  I think maybe he’s doing a little good bye saying himself,” Ken frowned a little.  “I’m going to miss him.  He gets on your nerves, but he’s probably the one reason we haven’t all lost our minds.”

 

            “He’s a Takatori,” Aya stated and that was the end of that.  He looked up at Yuuji.  “ _Do_ we trust this?”

 

            _The poor guy_ , Yuuji thought.  _Everything in his life has been one big step off a cliff.  He’s never stopped falling.  Maybe that’s it; I need someone to save.  He’s replacing this Asuka/Neu chick in my damn bleached out brain._  He leaned over, bracing a hand on the table and putting the other on Aya’s shoulder to rub and squeeze it gently.  “They could have killed us on the beach, right?” he said softly.  “Whatever is going on, it goes along with Kritiker’s plans, and saves us a hell of a lot of time.”

 

            “But….” Aya started then paused, at a loss. 

 

            “Every mission we go on, we’re expendable; what’s new here?” Yuuji slid the hand up to the edge of  Aya’s white trimmed black t-shirt and thumbed his bare neck.  He made sure there was just the right pitch to his voice.  “Either Kritiker is playing games, or too busy to talk to us, or someone is running us on Kritiker’s paycheck.  But can we turn this down?  Kritiker should be getting us this information.  It’s stuff Omi would be able to hack the school’s computers if he were told to, but they’re taking him off the team.”

 

            “This just seems so—risky,” Ken said.  “It’s bad enough doing Kritiker’s dirty work.  We need to find out who the hell is behind this.”

 

            “Ken,” Yuuji looked at him.  “Our jobs are usually given to us by sketchily dressed women with loaded guns to our heads.  I kind’a like the hands off method.  As long as the check’s in the bank.”

 

            Aya looked thoughtful.  There had been quite a lot of extra money deposited last time, more than Kritiker paid him, before the hospital and extra work to settle his sister back in gobbled it up.  In fact, just enough, with a little left to keep the account open. “If they try to kill us, we do what we always have to do.  Kill them first.”

 

            Yuuji leaned over a little further and kissed him on the tip of his nose and looked into his eyes, smiling a little.  “Just don’t get arterial spray all over me again, I hate it when you do that.  Not the way to flirt with a guy, Fujimiya.”

 

            “Stop with the gay,” Ken complained. 

 

            Yuuji watched Aya fall for everything, all suspicions dissolved by whatever was in his quirky DNA, aided by training in body language and voice control, and that subtle hypnosis called ‘charisma’.  He let his hand drop and backed away, suddenly not all that happy with himself.  “Let’s pack up the equipment now, before the kids get back, so we won’t draw any suspicion.”

 

            “You don’t think it’s suspicious already that you don’t want Omi in on this?” Ken asked, looking up at him darkly.

 

           “Ken, we’ve discussed the whole brain damage from soccer balls thing,” Yuuji informed him, tapping his own head for emphasis.  “And you’re welcome to stay home and tell Omi and Izumi-kun everything over cocoa and cookies, while we go stir up the wasp’s nest and ruin any chances of a future mission to clean it up by _this_ team.”

 

            “ _Is that a threat_?” Ken charged to his feet, one hand already in a fist.

 

            “Two against one, Ken,” Aya stated, getting up and picking up the file folder.  “And I’ve _always_ wanted to kill you.”

 

            Ken looked surprisingly hurt at that.  “Come on, guys, this is just—ah screw it, let’s go.” He backed down.

 

                        *          *          *

 

            “ _Tot,_ Rabbi-chan is _not_ an airplane!” Brad raised his voice.  “Stop it now!”

           

            She stopped it all right, freezing in place, eyes wide in shock, clutching the hapless rabbit to herself again. 

           

            Brad took a deep breath and let it out slow.  “Please, go do something _quiet_.  We need to work right now,” he said in as calm and normal a voice as he could command under the circumstances.  Coming home to a mad house was not his idea of coming home.

           

            “I was hoping letting her run riot would calm her down later,” Nagi said.

           

            “You’re far too young to be raising a hyperactive ‘toddler’,” Brad told him in dismay.  “I need a drink.  I can’t deal with this.”  He went over to the suite’s mini-bar and rummaged around in it.  Normally it didn’t get restocked unless they specifically called for service and someone was going to be in to keep watch over the help.

 

            Nagi looked grieved, but as usual, emo won out.  “She’ll get over it.”

 

            “Perhaps that’s true, but until she does, she has to know that certain behaviors have their time and place, and running around the living room of this suit making jet noises when my head is about to explode is neither.  Don’t keep her cooped up inside all day long.” He unscrewed the cap of a liter bottle of scotch and drank half of it. 

 

            Nagi frowned a little.  “I—,” he hesitated.  “I’m a little afraid someone might recognize her.”

 

            “I don’t think so,” Schuldig tossed in his opinion, “I’m betting that blue hair and the bizarre clothing is a disguise.  Schrient might not have wanted her recognized either.”

 

            “Tot wants to come with Nagi tonight,” She said over Rabi-chan’s head.  “If Nagi fights, Tot wants to, too.”

 

            “Not this time,” Brad told her.  “Nagi would be too worried about you to do what he has to do and this is going to take a lot of concentration on Nagi’s part.  Do not,” he held up his finger in front of her face, “start throwing a tantrum. It’s not going to work. Jei doesn’t like having to give up his room for your time outs.”

 

            She blinked.

 

            “You forget, kleines Mädchen, I read minds; _he_ knows the future before it happens.  Keep that in mind when you decide to make trouble.” Schuldig warned her.  “Tot, answer me this—when is your birthday?”

 

            She shook her head, Rabi’s ear tip stuck between her lips.

 

            “How old are you?”

 

            She shook her head again.

 

            “How old do you _think_ you are?”

 

            She looked truly puzzled.  “Um—,” 

 

            “This looks like it’s going to involve lots of fingers and toes,” Brad said.  “Food is in order.” He walked over to pick up the sheaf of take out flyers.  “I’ll be ‘mother’ tonight,” he shot Schuldig a scathing look. 

 

            Schuldig clapped his hands together.  “I’ll get the frilly apron!”

 

            Jei caught his arm.  “Don’t.”

 

            “You’re no fun anymore,” Schuldig pouted.

 

            “No, I mean really, don’t.  You’re trailing something,” he nodded his head toward Tot.

 

            “Ah,” Schuldig caught himself.  “That was close,” he put a hand to his chest.  “Thank you, Farfarello.  That big empty goes pretty deep.  Anything related to her past gets round filed into a black hole,” he told Brad.  “I have to wonder if Schrient ever ‘corrected’ the situation that caused this.”

 

           “It might be worth looking into,” Brad said.  “Purely out of curiosity, of course,” he told Nagi.

 

            Nagi gave him the ‘oh sure, disguise it as derision because you accidentally had a ‘moment’ there’ look only a teenager with a black belt in Emo can perform so scathingly.  To mere mortals, this translated as ‘bullshit’. 

 

            Brad rolled his eyes, gave up, and picked up the phone.  He ordered the usual round of chinese, along with extra shrimp fried rice for Tot, who was stuck in that part of childhood where only one type of food was acceptable (along with icecream).  At least she was capable of handling her own hygene needs, even if that meant the whole team (and possibly the neighbors) had to know there were no tampons in the bathroom.  Apparently Sanrio knew no shame, but it was pretty funny watching Nagi sweat it out over having to buy the things.  His ‘rescue’ his responsibility. "Nagi, is that report ready?"

 

          "The military having a total meltdown crises over the priminister is about the only solid fact so far," Nagi sat down at the suite’s small dining table and tapped on the space bar on his laptop to wake it out of sleep mode.  “You’d thing they’d be adult about it and just get a new one.  But the rumors are flying fast and low.  Everything seems to lead up to one conclusion; you were right about the temporal black out.  Starting with that, from what I’ve been able to collect, even though the collapse was only last week, people flying over the area are reporting that Shinjuku is either a wasteland in flames, or recovered to some extent.  Private flights have now been restricted and commercial ones re-routed because of the horrific turbulence. The Shinjuku line, of course, is completely down. 

           "This ‘smoke screen’ effect the news cams are recording is either dust from the collapse held in place by the basin effect created by the subsidence, or something that’s ‘just there’ for a reason, possibly the anomaly manifesting to the normal human eye.  The government is trying to keep things under wraps to prevent panic, but the sinking of a 20 meter wide crevasse seems to be very effective in keeping the disaster isolated.  And it’s not a perfect circle, the actual damage is eerily exact along the civic demarcation lines, right down to the postal code.  It’s like someone took a laser cutter to a map and said let’s destroy just this part for the living hell of it.”

            “’Someone’ sounds like a fun date,” Schuldig grinned.

            Brad gave him  a dirty look.

            “The only marginally surviving way in is the Toei Shinjuku railway bridge. It’s shaky, but there.  The military is guarding that one with instructions to shoot to kill anyone insisting on coming and going without specific permission.  Rumor has it because of what’s tried to crawl out the first couple of nights. The Arakawa is gone, pouring into the crevasse.  Current estimates are that the crevasse is over a hundred meters deep, the bottom can’t be seen, not on the wet or the dry sides.” Nagi looked up at Brad.  “Did we do that?”

           

            “No,” Brad stated firmly.  “We stopped the Three from completing the sacrifice, the girl wasn’t even scratched.  This was someone else’s doing.  The Three wanted everything intact to rule over once they obtained permanent immortality.  This is just a mess.”

           

            “If we got in there, inside the anomely, would your talent work?” Schuldig asked Brad. 

           

            For once he had no answer and it was disturbing to him.  “If this _is_ a magical event, there’s no way of telling what might happen if we went in there."

           

            “I could try lifting something small from our side of the crevasse,” Nagi said. 

                       

            “Excellent idea,” Brad decided.  “But I want to know more about these reports of varying recovery.  Do they occur at different times of the day?  Perhaps the event is stuck in a loop and people are seeing the area before and after in alternating views, rather than post disaster and recovery?” 

           

            “I could go in,” Farfarello said.

           

            Schuldig looked at Brad. /I’m not so sure about that idea.  He's covering up, but he's getting manic at the thought of it./

           

            “We’ll go in together,” Brad said.  “I want more information than this before we do.  Sorry, Jei, not yet. But when we do go, we’ll be taking more than a picnic basket.  In the mean time, we need to prepare for this evening’s entertainment.


	8. 8

                It really didn't do to be in a reflective mood when engaging in a plot to blow up a school with surgical precision in mind.  Perhaps that was how he got himself ‘blown up’ in the first place.  This was not helping.  He had people who knew him on sight from Esset, Brad and Aya all converging in one potential horrific shit storm. 

                _‘Never too late to leave town, Sarazawa,’_ his brain suggested.

                Nope, that wasn’t the answer.  For one thing, he was finally ‘home’.  Funny how things kept popping up like that after all these years.  Maybe because he hadn’t had those memories to examine for a while, they seemed so fresh.  Brad had kept his promise, even after he thought there was no reason to.  He put his hands in his coat pockets and dug his heel into the grass under his feet, anything but wishing he had a cigarette. 

                “What?” Aya said.

                He looked up from his turf destruction.  “Nothing.  Just thinking,” he said honestly.  “Almost time.”

                About a minute later, they heard the schools chimes start and a loudspeaker announcement that any students found outside their dorms without permission codes would be punished.

                “Ken, go first,” Aya ordered.  “I want a moment alone with Yohji.”

                With a sigh of resignation, Ken, picked up his gym bag of explosives and trudged off through the wooded surrounds of the school. 

                 Aya grabbed Yuuji by the fronts of his coat and kissed him.  Yuuji put his arms around him and held him there, making sure he wasn’t regretting things again.  Then he laughed and stepped back a little.  “Damn it, that’s your sword handle, isn’t it?”

                Aya smiled at him slyly.  “Stupid.  What did you think it was?”

                “Well, you did say you wanted a moment alone with me,” Yuuji felt himself relax, smiling. 

                Aya pulled his gloves on tighter, and fidgeted with then.  “Be careful,” he said quietly, looking at his fingers rather than up at ‘Yohji’. 

                Yuuji tugged one of the long burgundy locks. He’d always thought it was a silly trendy hairstyle for a guy, but on Aya, it worked somehow.  “Aya, look at me,” he said softly.

                Aya looked up.  There it was, the flash again, the dark shimmering light in the depths of his pupils like something else was there, not the chatoyance of a cat or other animal in the night, but something eerily electric and liquid at the same time. 

                “Aya—are you love with me?”

                Aya looked away, then turned to step close to him again.  “I think so,” his breath whispered on Yuuji’s cheek.  “Is that okay?”

                Yuuji took him by the waist and kissed him again.  “Yeah.  It’s okay.”  He wrapped him up tightly in his arms for a breath, then slid away.  “Stay safe tonight, nut job,” he ordered.  “No stabbing cars, no helicopter chasing.”

                Aya smiled, then tossed his hair of his eyes.  “Just stay out of my way, Kudoh.”

                “We’d better get going, or Ken’s going to wrap this up all by himself and then we’ll never hear the end of it,” Yuuji told him and turned to start walking. 

                *             *             *

                “I don’t care if it’s going to be difficult and messy, I’ll take Sarazawa, you take Fujimiya, and we’ll let these little brats have Hidaka and call it poetic.” Schuldig said to Brad. 

                “Forget it,” Brad said.  “Farfarello, follow Siberian.  He’ll be between the Administration and the dorms, trying to keep the kids out of it.   Kill anyone who tries to get the drop on him, but stay out of sight.”

                “Why are we protecting Weiss?” the Irishman, not happy, wanted to know.

                “Because once again, Weiss is going to catch all the trouble while we take care of business,” Brad said in annoyance.  “Don’t question me; just do as I say!”

                Jei gave him a sarcastic salute and took off through the woods.

                “He’ll obey,” Schuldig said.  “But you know that.  I will tell you something you don’t know, because you’re not a mind reader.”

                Brad looked at him in exasperation.  “Does this have anything to do with taking out this rat’s nest?”

                Schuldig looked like he was thinking something over very carefully before saying something, for once.  “No, but—.”

                “Then _don’t_ tell me.” Brad said, looking away again.  “Let’s just get this over with.  You handle the guards, I’ll handle the shooting.”

                Schuldig followed him.  “Can we save a few to torture?”

                “Is that hat giving you ideas?  _No_.”

                “That’s _it_ , I am never taking this hat off again.  Not even in bed.  Love me, love my hat!”

                “Only if you wear those stupid mock gun belt suspenders with your underwear.  _That,_ I need a photo of on my phone. “

                This stopped the red head short in his tracks.  Then he realized his chain was being yanked.  “I _hate_ you!”

*             *             *

                Nagi had slipped into the school’s population an hour earlier, grabbed a uniform in his size from the stores room and became just another kid no one quite recognized.  Anytime it looked like someone was going to come over to question him, they suffered a trip over their own feet, or another student walked into them, or something happened to and get their attention of ‘the new kid’.  He wondered if students at Rosencruz when Brad was there were as simple to fool?  Not that he liked being around people that much, but sometimes, he got a little—was it nostalgia for something he’d never experience?  A normal life?  Hanging around with kids his own age?  Making friends? 

                He’d tried it once, under orders from Brad to develop _some_ social skills.

                They broke so easily. 

                That had put him off sports for life.   

                He couldn’t get a curfew pass as easily as he had gotten the uniform.  The passes were electronically added to the student’s ID cards.  Fortunately with his power, he didn’t need a pass card to open any of the doors.  It did take a bit of concentration, though, focusing just enough power to glitch the locks without setting off an alarm by damaging them.

                He hoped Tot wasn’t especially resistant to the sleeping drug she’d been dosed with to keep her out of trouble while they were gone.  He hadn’t wanted to do it, but she did have an alarming tendency to just go off on her own.  It was conflicting, though. Who wanted to keep their girlfriend (and even that was questionable, given her mental state) drugged to keep her around?  Very sketchy.  After all, it was one thing when, say, you kidnapped someone who looked like the enemy’s sister just to piss him off and Schuldig smacked her around before nearly having her sacrificed; and quite another when you ‘rescued’ someone for her own good and then found out she was loopy as hell, but so—endearing.  Was he really, as Schuldig had put it, suffering from reverse Stockholm syndrome?

                The door to the lab opened.  He cracked his knuckles.  Show time.  He walked into the lab and spread his arms, taking out the equipment on both sides as he walked into the main part of the facility, crushing and twisting everything into ruins, including the two lab workers who had maybe 5 seconds, tops, to realize they were dead no matter how they reacted.  There was no sign of any bio work going on in this room, though.  He saw the reinforced door on the other side and started toward it. 

                An explosion boomed above and off to the left.  Weiss would be just getting started.  A few random bombs to stir things up while the main building was set up for complete demolition.  An alarm went off, but it was late enough now for him to no longer worry about being discrete.  With the distraction up there, not many people would come down here to check on things.  After all, it was so well secured.  This time there was no need for subtlety.  He slammed the door back into its socket in the wall and walked down a hallway to another steel door. 

                Two more of these useless spaces and he finally reached a door that opened into a huge room cluttered with equipment.  It was dark but lit with low lighting, possibly because it was evening and work was done for the day?  A few steps lead down in to the lower room from a mezzanine that ran all around it.  A number of oval coffin shapes on pedestals large enough to contain a human being were spaced in a partial circle, conduits leading to them from the central cpu tower.  The thing was huge, possibly mostly cooling and liquid management?  But the set up made him curious.  Was she programming her clones? 

                “Stop right there!”  A woman’s voice ordered from across the room, echoing slightly in the cinder block walled room. 

                He looked at Dr. Tsuji. 

                She had a gun trained on him.  “Who are you?” She demanded.

                While it wasn’t necessary for him to gesture to control his power, he found it helped to focus control and isolate the effect.  He reached out and closed his fingers into a fist.  The gun was yanked out of her hand.  He turned it on her just to make the point, aiming straight at her heart.  “Schwarz, Naoe Nagi,” he said quietly.   He indicated the crèches with his free hand.  “And nothing you can do here will ever be the equal of me.” _(Was that pushing it?  Perhaps he should practice lines like that a little more.)_

                The crèches crumpled, the sustaining liquid in them spilling out like egg white, then pinkening.  Darkened red followed. 

                She screamed in heart rending horror.  “NO!”

                Brad had always told him, be quick about it.  _‘There is no room for last minute judgment, no question of mercy, and NO soliloquies.  If we are there, the sentence has been passed. It’s_ just _a job.’_  He decided not to challenge that.  He let the gun fall and looked away as he crushed her. 

                Now for the computer. 

                The idea of a predictive computer was such a huge step backward from cloning, he wondered why they had even bothered.  Especially when Esset always put psychological blocks on their precognitive to keep them from actually doing anything about the future that mattered.  He also wondered how many more of these little enclaves of self determination were coming into play as the ripple effect of the Three being destroyed tore through the organization they had created?  Had Brad ever considered that there might just be others who shared his dream of screwing over Esset?  Or was the very reason he had succeeded was because he was the only one so determined. 

                Nagi sat down at the main terminal and got to work.  “Bet you didn’t see this coming,” he murmured to the monitor screen.  The explosions were becoming more frequent above.  He would have to watch out for that.  This getting buildings dropped on him thing was becoming a bore. 

                *             *             *

                It couldn’t be more insane if it were choreographed for a movie scene.  Aya found himself working to protect Yohji’s back while he set the bombs on the Administration building.  Ken had been doing his best to herd the kids out of the mayhem, but even he could only take one so many attempts on his life by the little monsters before he got a clue and started fighting back.  Even so, he was still reluctant.  His bugh nucks hung from their chains on his wrist, ready to be put back on if things turned even more lethal.  

                “What about the lab!” He called over his shoulder to the others when he caught a moment.  “How are we going to get down there through all this!”

                “We don’t!” Yuuji yelled back at him.  “We pull down the whole place on it and crush it.”

                “How do you know that will shut them down for good!” Ken demanded, punching another student dumb enough to run right into a fist into dreamland. 

                “We don’t, but it’s going to slow them down a hell of a lot explain all this to the authorities!” Yuuji almost laughed.  Of course he didn’t mean the _Japanese_ authorities. “Fight hard!” he encouraged, readying another bomb.  This wasn’t going well.  He wished he had something more concentrated.  But they were here to distract, not to actually succeed in demolishing the place.  Still, he took a certain amount of pride in his work and this—this sucked.

                The chatter of a automatic froze them in their places, bullets bouncing off concrete sidewalks and throwing divots of dirt and grass up around them.  Even the security guards and students harassing them fell back at this new arrival. 

                A woman with ash blond hair stood there holding said gun in the remaining security lights and rising fire from one of the bombs that had set a tree or two off along landscaped hedges.  Behind her were two more guards in body armor and masks.  “Stay where you are, _Weiss_ ,” she ordered.

                Yuuji quickly pinched and pulled out the detonator wire on the bomb he had been setting to disarm it, and stood up slowly, raising his hands. 

                Aya held his sword up at the ready, as if he could deflect automatic gun fire, let alone a single shot.  Well, maybe he could, Yuuji thought.  Never know till he was aimed at, now would they? 

                Ken slowly backed up to stand by them, his own hands over his shoulders.  “It was a trap after all.”

                The woman frowned slightly. 

                Yuuji walked slowly forward, keeping his hands up, “Moria Riverside,” he said calmly, and switched to German.  “I should have known you were the one who left that file in my car.”

                She blinked.  “What are you talking—,” she started in Japanese, then stopped, then almost recoiled from what she was seeing in the glare of her guard’s flashlights.  “ _Virus!_   The rumors--You’re alive!” she said in German.

                “Esset really _is_ falling to pieces,” he laughed a little.  “You’re interfering with my assignment.  These guys with me are going to find this all very suspicious.”

                “No, you’re under edict!” she was getting flustered, working to hold the gun steady, now aiming it on him alone.  “And for a good reason, obviously.” She shot the other two of Weiss a cold look.

                “Are you so sure of that,” he smiled.  “So much has gone wrong lately, with Esset’s plans.”

                “Were _you_ responsible for the attack on the tower?” She realized in shock and accusation.  “You destroyed the Elders!”

                “Actually no, not entirely all me,” Yuuji took another step closer.  One of the previously set bombs went off right on time, collapsing an outer wall of the main administration building, the compression noise deflected away from them by the remaining section. 

                Moria winced and her men braced themselves, just in case there was more to come.  

                “Kritiker took out the tower, someone else took advantage of the Elder’s being put on the spot.  And according to those files, you’ve got sedition going on here that incident makes _that_ look even more suspicious.  Why does Kritiker know so much about us?”

                “What are you talking about!  We had nothing to do with that!” she protested, the gun wavering.

                 “You mean, _you_ didn’t pass me those files with all the information Kritiker needed to blow this place wide open?” he asked innocently.  Closer—closer he kept moving slowly, casually, letting the noise around them making it necessary to answer her questions.   

                She scowled at him, her hand tightening on the gun as if that would help hold him off.  “What are you pulling here, Virus!”

                “Ah, now you see? Look around you?” he waved his left hand in a circle.  “Is this how Koua handles an invasion?  I was told there were flaws in your security here, but I didn’t expect it all to be this lax.  Your people must have done a good job of covering up, to conceal it from Schwarz’s inspection.”

                She blanched.  “That man—this is _his_ doing?”  Then she froze, seeing him aim his watch at her.

                Before he could lower his right hand to hit the button, a gunshot cracked out.  Her guards looked around, bracing themselves, but it was too late.  She fell, the black hole of a bullet wound in her forehead. 

                Aya moving with his usual speed (and lack of interest in where the bullet had come from, apparently) sliced them both in one sweep across their torsos. Body armor designed to stop the high power impact of a bullet simply cut like fabric under the horizontal sweep of the katana blade.  Maybe if they got help before they bled out, they’d survive, but that was debatable.

                Aya stood there over the three bodies, his sword dripping. The others who had been watching while their superior held court fell back, not willing to take on a mad man with a big damned sword, or the sniper who was picking them off one by one. 

                Aya turned his head, looking at Yuuji.  “Balinese?” he stated.

                “Lucky stray shots,” Yuuji told him mildly in Japanese. “Bombs to set, building to destroy; back to work, guys,” he smiled disarmingly and then turned his back on Aya to go back to the one he’d been setting.

                “Yohji!” Aya commanded.   

             He slipped the detonator wire back into place, and set the timer, then stood and grabbed up the backpack he was carrying his share of the load in.  “We stand here and argue and get slaughtered, or we get through this and talk later.  Ken, pull it together, incoming.”

                Ken took on the next batch of stripling killers and Yuuji moved on to the next support wall.  He wished he had something a lot more serious to work with, but Kritiker didn’t seem to be too into demolition.  He made a mental note to get hold of the more destructive stuff as soon as possible.

                /Nagi’s clear, bring it down./ Schuldig relayed in his mind.

                /I’ve got a _situation_ brewing.  That shot could have come a _little sooner_ ,/ he thought back. /How clear are we up here?/

                /So sue us.  We’ve got the target staff.  Fujimiya’s infected enough to be conflicted, don’t worry about it.  Get on with the job./

                Yuuji wondered what exactly _was_ his job.  Weiss was a blind, covering for Schwarz, obviously.  Kritiker wouldn’t be happy.  Either Brad had a long term plan, or he was screwed.  For one tiny moment, he hesitated, caught in sudden and very reasonable fear. 

                “Yohji,” Aya’s voice, deep and loud enough to carry over the destruction, sounding not so angry now, as lost.

                He shook it off.  No.  He trusted Brad.  In two strides he had his glove off and his hand on Aya’s cheek, then he kissed him, making sure to use tongue, the better to keep him ‘dosed up’. _“Trust me,”_ he ordered, subtlety be damned.  “I’ll explain _later_.” 

                *             *             *

                Crawford watched the chaos with a bit of unholy glee leaking out all round his edges as he reloaded his gun with a fresh clip.  Bombs everywhere, roaring fires starting to spread, the people in control hopelessly out of control; the screams and frightened crying of the kids who didn’t know what was happening;  the stunned faces of those who _did_ and were facing real competition for the first time.  They were also finding their training in murdering the equivalent of puppies hadn’t quite readied them for battle hardened killers. 

                His report would go in.  Koua was a total failure.  They couldn’t even fight off Weiss.  The destruction of Tsuji’s lab and the computer, collateral damage.  Failure must be eliminated, lest the incompetence be seen as acceptable and then spread like cancer.  Esset to the letter of Esset’s laws.

                He looked at Schuldig and was struck once again by how in his element the red head was in flickering inferno light.  Sarazawa, the asshole, had broke his heart twice now, but in his own fucked up way of keeping everything copacetic, as usual.  Nothing he could do about it, not without it just being a stupid waste that would make himself even more miserable.  To call Yuuji wrong would be to deny _this_.  After all a heart was just a piece of meat. _Possessing_ this fabulous creature was a reason to feel alive.

                Schuldig turned that thousand watt grin on him, eyes never cold for _him._   “What a mess,” he said aloud. 

                Brad grinned back. “Whoops, misinterpreted the orders.”

                “Careful, if this sort of incompetence continues, we might end up being the next ‘Them’ and ruling the world by default.”

                “I’m not sharing world domination with _that_ hat,” Brad stated.  

                “You’re just jealous because my hat rules alone,” Schuldig retorted.   

                Brad raised his gun and took aim.

                Schuldig ducked just in time, snatching the hat off his head and putting it behind his back.  “Sheisse! Sie Gott verdammt Verrückter!” he exclaimed.

                “Down with tyranny,” Brad said sweetly and put his gun away.   


	9. 9

                “Explain this!” Manx threw the news paper down on the picnic bench in the shop the minute the school girls had cleared out. 

                “You know, I don’t think it’s such a good idea for our cover to tell our best customers that you’re the health inspector and we’ve been reported for rats.” Yuuji said.

                “Oh, there’s a rat here, all right,” she focused on him. 

                Aya came out from behind the counter and stood between her and ‘Yohji’,  “What are you accusing us of?”

                “Koua Academy was attacked last night.  Blown up, burned to the ground, teachers and students slaughtered, it’s all over the news!” she said in a rage. 

                “Slaughtered!” Ken started to protest. 

                Yuuji held up a hand to warn him to be silent.  Omi and Sena just sat there at the other end of the table, like matching stunned bookends.  Omi had been teaching Sena how to do the simple but cute inexpensive arrangements the girls were asking for.   

                “And you think it was _us_?” Aya threw her barely controlled rage back at her. 

                “Who else could it have been?” she demanded. 

                “Like we haven’t been framed before!”

                He knew how to use that voice, Yuuji thought.  Too bad he had the charisma of a deep ocean fish. 

                “Where were you last night?” Manx snarled back.

                Aya blushed quite red.  “Well, not at the school,” he said, suddenly backing down.

                Yuuji almost had to stop his eyes from going wide.  What the—was Aya actually doing a good job of _lying?_

                “And you, Kudoh?” she turned on him.

                Yuuji crossed his arms and looked uncomfortable, tossing Aya a look with a question in it.

                “ _Not_ at the school,” Aya stated, becoming belligerent again. 

                “If it helps, I was at a movie last night,” Ken volunteered.  “Mad Max.  I’ve been wanting to see the new one.”

                Aya looked very shifty and if his face was any indication, needed a blood pressure check and soon.  He gave a little nod to Yuuji, frowning.

                Yuuji went over to his jacket and got the hotel receipt out Aya and he had picked up on the way out to the school.  It had been far too easy to just go in the front and out the back.  If the management got paid for a whole night, the room was rented for a whole night, they didn’t care as long as the ‘guest’ checked out when their paid for time was up.  He held it up for Manx to see.

                Aya looked absolutely mortified.  Yuuji couldn’t tell if it was all for real or mostly for show. 

                Manx snatched the receipt and looked at it, then at them.  Disbelief shadowed her face as she looked at Aya again.  He sullenly refused to meet her eyes.  “Oh, Kudoh, you are a bastard.” She looked at the blond. 

                “That’s not for you to judge!” Aya stated angrily. “It’s not as if you have any problems  assigning him missions that involve seducing women!”

                She held up her hand for silence. “You’re right.” She said, somewhat strained in her attempt to pull herself together.  “I’ve been letting my anger interfere with my professionalism lately.  My—apologies,” she said.  “But the attack on Koua has thrown everything Kritiker has worked for so carefully into the sewer!  We were working to back track Esset to their main organization.  Now this route has been cut off.  We have only the overseas investigations now.”

                “Why?” Aya stated.  “Why bother with them if they are out of Japan?”

                “It’s not that simple,” she answered.  “We have allies to consider.  International security is at stake.  This organization—is out to change the world into something we’ve been fighting for almost a hundred years now.”

                Yuuji wondered where the hell Kritiker, by any definition a private militia owing to the Takatori clan,  got off calling the kettle black.  He glanced at Ken, who was poker faced.  “Did the paper work for the mission ever get sorted out?” he asked Manx.

                “The records were all pulled the moment we submitted them.  The mission was compromised before the attack last night,” she looked at each of them in turn.  “It was going to be canceled but we had to determine who it was inside who knew we were attempting it.”

                Ken made a ‘tcha’ noise, but otherwise kept his mouth shut. 

                “And Koua was destroyed anyway?” Yuuji said thoughtfully.  “Is there any chance this is tied in with what happened to Shinjuku?  Seems to me that there’s something going on there that’s a lot more than these paranormal bastards from Esset.”

                “They’re still working to rescue—or at least—to recover the Prime minister and the General,” she said, shaking off the dark cloud she’d been under.  “Your alibis will be investigated, just so you’re aware of it.” She said, readying to take her leave.  “Seems like the one time you were staying out of trouble, it found you.  I’d be very careful from now on, all of you.” She walked to the door and let herself out. 

                “Shit,” Ken stated.

                Yuuji gave his ankle a kick to warn him not to talk in front of Omi and Sena. 

                “Well,” Omi looked stressed himself.  “We’ll just have to be _more_ careful.”

                “Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Aya stated, then took his apron off and tossed it on the counter.  “I’m going to the hospital.” He grabbed his keys and headed out the door, radiating level ten ‘leave me alone, or I’ll kill you’-ness.

                Yuuji thought about this a moment, then decided to let him go. He had more on his mind anyway.  Like the fact that they had all covered their butts with the CTV cams outside the love motel and the theater, so that was about as much as the police Kritiker ran could do about it.  Aya had seriously surprised him with that act.  But what was going through Ken’s head? 

                “Is something going on?” Omi asked.

                Yuuji shook his head.  “You’re in a better position to know that than we are, Omi-chibi.”  As smart as Omi was, Yuuji was beginning to think Koreshigi had gutted his intuition.   It certainly explained a _lot_ about Omi. “What are you seeing online about this whole Shinjuku thing?”

                *             *             *

                Brad took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with one hand, eyes closed, and sighed.  The phone conversation with the remaining controlling committee of Esset hadn’t been that difficult to deal with, but he wondered just how much more in danger the world was at their hands.  Simply put, his conclusion was that _someone_ in Koua had aided Kritiker and in turn, Weiss. Possibly Ms. Riverside, who had a previous connection with the now defunct agent, Virus? Traitors in the ranks made sense to the committee; after all they were programmed to constantly suspect _each other_.  Always the gritted teeth behind the fraternal smiles, the sheathed stiletto behind the hand shake. 

                “What is it?” Schuldig asked, having been hanging over him through the whole thing.  Once again, his butt was parked on the table’s edge. 

                “One problem solved.  But there’s still what happened with Shinjuku to deal with,” Brad sat back in his chair, resting his eyes. 

                “They bought that line of BS you handed them?” he was surprised.

                Brad gave him a scathing look.  “I told them exactly what they wanted to hear.  Precog?”

                “Oh, don’t be so smug,” Schuldig crossed his arms.   

                “Why are you sitting on the table again?  Is there something wrong with chairs?  Have you developed a strange aversion to certain inanimate objects?”

                “We need a bigger place, this is getting insane,” he indicated Tot and Nagi, lap top, Ipods and crayons all over the coffee table; toys both soft and tech, all over the sofas.  “It was impossible getting bathroom time before, but this is insane.  I freaked out over huge poisonous centipedes making out on the counter at three am this morning before I realized they were just false eyelashes.  And the blood!  I thought Farfarello had forgotten his medication again, but no, it’s that _other thing_ , and far more rank.  I want a new place to live, _with_ a dishwashing machine.”

                Brad winced.  Yeah, he’d noticed that too.  “You’re in no position to make demands.”

                Schuldig half turned to look down at him.  “Oh, aren’t I?” he threatened.

                Brad smiled.  The truth was, Schuldig’s random attempts at destruction and violence amused the hell out of him most of the time; but frustrating the little juggernaut of chaos was even more fun.  “Oh, _are_ you?” he sat back, lacing his fingers together on the table top, head tilted in bright interest.  “Do inform me.”

                A flash of distrust went through blue eyes.  

                Brad grinned.

                Schuldig pouted. 

                Game over.  Never bluff a champion bluffer.

                Brad put his glasses back on and stood up.  “We’ll look into it.  In the mean time, I want to take another look at the crevasse surrounding Shinjuku.  Nagi?”

                *             *             *

                “…Shinjuku…doctor is using _magic_ to cure…”

                Aya stopped in his tracks, listening.  He’d heard something similar in passing, earlier in the hallway on the way to his sister’s room and hadn’t thought about it at the time, but it sunk in while he’d sat there, helpless.

                “…some guy down there is…” the whispers continued.

                He pulled out his phone and walked back a bit, closer to the nurse’s station and the little waiting area for that floor. 

                “… _cancer_?  That’s impossible…”

                “…but it’s so dangerous, you have to really be desperate.”

                “Sir, turn that phone off, please!” One of them called out to Aya sweetly.  “Not allowed!”

                Damn it, everywhere else, you could stand there and listen to anything with a phone in your hand and people thought you were just web surfing.  He sat down and picked up an out of date car magazine. 

                After a few phone calls and some actual work interrupted them, the hen fest started again. “…it’s all over.  I heard it from the fourth floor.  Patients are canceling because they’ve been cured.”

                “Honestly?”

                “Look at the records!  Doctor Yoshinuma is furious; she’s had lymphatic cancer patients asking about this guy all day!”

                “Who is he?  If he’s a real doctor, he has to be on the register.”

                Aya wanted to grab one and interrogate her, but all he could do was sit there.  Besides, he had only the knife in his boot and that was probably slightly more frowned at than having a cell phone on in the hospital.  

                “Someone called Mephisto.  No one’s heard of him until now.”

                “Could he be a scammer?  With a name like that? It’s out of some book, isn’t it?”

                “Like those people in the Philippians who do surgery by moving their hands and it ends up being buckets of pigs blood and hypnosis?”

                “No, they have MRIs, the cancers are gone!”

                “If you look at what’s happened to Shinjuku, who knows what’s possible anymore?”

                The phone rang and broke it up yet again. 

                Aya got up and strode out, barely able to keep himself from running. 

                *             *             *

                “Mephisto?” Omi blinked.  “You mean like the character in Faust?”

                “Someone claiming to be a doctor is using that name in Shinjuku,” Aya stated.  “Find out who he is.  Maybe a psychic healer or some scam artist?”

                “But how do you know that?” Yuuji asked.

               “It’s all over the hospital, he’s curing people of everything from heart problems to cancer of the bones.” Aya stated. “If he’ll see my sister—,” he didn’t finish the sentence, unable to breath for a moment at the thought of it. 

                Yuuji turned off the tap for the hose before the build up in pressure started the sprayer leaking on the floor, and hung it on the hook.  “Aya, I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high,” he said gently.

                “Right now, any kind of hope is enough!” Aya insisted.  “You said those people from Esset have powers, we’ve all seen them work.  Who’s to say this person doesn’t!”

                Yuuji wasn’t so sure about this.  Even quick healers couldn’t heal someone else, not even through blood transfer.  Either the ritual or someone else’s ritual had done something impossible, or this Mephisto guy was a scam.

                Omi was busy at the computer.  Yuuji noted that Sena was all eyes for everything he did, leaning over to look at the screen.  Hmm. 

                “Aya’s right, it’s in the forum.  It’s gone into the thousands of posts and they’re begging people to back off the system.  And there it goes,” Omi said in frustration.  “They’ve crashed the servers,” he looked up.  “But Aya-kun, it’s just a rumor for now.  There’s no proof.”

                Aya looked frustrated and angry in turns, then looked up again.  “Yoshinuma.  One of the nurses said _Dr. Yoshinuma’s_ lymphoma patients were asking about this Mephisto and canceling appointments.  Hack the hospitals, the patient records, every one of them in Tokyo.  Find out who’s suddenly been completely cured of something incurable.”

                To Omi, this was the equivalent of being let loose in an Akihabara tech parts store with a Black card.

                “Yohji,” Aya turned to him, purple eyes imploring.  “Call those nurses you know.  Ask them,” he pleaded.

                Yuuji felt like he’d just been sold down river by the same guy who had that morning protested pimping him out for Kritiker’s plots.  He took out his phone, “Only because you asked,” he said a bit coolly.    

                “Just remember, no sex,” Aya glared at him jealously. 

                Okay, that was better. 

                *             *             *

               “Boooo, it goes waaaaay down,” Tot said, leaning way too far over the barrier railing she’d stepped up on the rail of.  Despite the ruffles and frills, she spit into the crevasse. 

                Brad seriously thought about giving her a good boot to have her go check it out.  After all, Schuldig could get the answer before she hit bottom.

              “Tot,” Nagi caught her by the waist and pulled her back down onto the tarmac.  “Stop showing off your underwear.”  The heavy breeze had been doing a number on her frilly skirt. 

                She giggled.  “Look!  Let’s get ice cream!” she pointed across the way behind them.

                Brad rolled his eyes. 

                /Just shoot her,/ Schuldig drawled in his mind.

                /No, the punishment should fit the crime.  Nagi disobeyed; he’s got to learn./

                /You’re an idiot.  He’s losing brain cells, look at him./

                Brad looked at the soppy pair.  He fought the urge to make the warding sign of the cross like a peasant from some old black and white old vampire movie and suppressed  a shudder.  Then he realized Farfarello was about to go heading for the barrier with intent.  “Farfarello, don’t you _dare_ ,” he raised his voice.

                “God hates this place,” Farfarello announced, as if hypnotized.

                “Yes, I think that’s been made clear,” Brad said.  “And wouldn’t He be happy if you broke your neck trying to get into Hell?  Show some common sense, will you.” 

                /I’m pretty sure he’s picking up something we aren’t/ Schuldig sent.  /His senses are going nuts— smells, sounds coming from down there—I don’t want to risk getting caught up going any further./

              “Jei,” Brad said more firmly.  “Keep it together.  I’m going to need you in one piece in there, you have to be patient.” /Tell  Nagi to keep an eye on him just in case. Quietly./ he stressed the last thought-word.

                /Done,/ Shuldig relayed. /But now apparently ‘I’ have to get the ice-cream./

                Brad took out his wallet.  “Green tea, two scoops,” he handed over the money.

                “I should report you,” Schuldig told him, taking the money anyway.  “This is abuse of an underling.”

                “I’ll remember that the next time you want me to pull your hair and spank you,” Brad cooed at him evilly.

                “Gross!” Nagi announced.  “Lychee sorbet, and vanilla with sprinkles.”

                “Chocolate velvet with cherry sauce,” Jei added. 

                “I’m going to kill the son of a bitch who set up an ice-cream truck across the street from a disaster scene,” Schuldig muttered viciously, looking at the line, then huffing out an angry breath.  “Insane scary gaijin, coming through!” he announced waving his arms at the native Japanese, who fled in (well ordered) horror before him.  “Oni-da!  Oni-da!”

                “ _Schul-dig_!” Brad called after him. 

                Everyone in a twenty foot radius suddenly forgot what they were doing and wandered off thinking about other things they needed to do.  The owner of the truck ducked a quick bow and smiled, taking the order despite having had about fifteen customers chased off only a moment ago. 

                “So much for the not being a ‘flashy thingie’ thing.” Nagi commented. 

                Brad watched Schuldig lean on the counter and pull a strand of windblown hair from his face as he stood there talking with the ice cream man, gesturing at the crevasse.  Quite a conversation they were having.  Not only did he get a doubled cardboard carry tray for everything, Brad saw him count out a few extra bills and tip the guy with a smile and a nod of thanks.  ‘ _So much for killing anyone_ ’, he smirked.  As the crazy redhead came back across the open space that had been a major street and was now some sort of viewing square, people wondered back into line at the icecream truck behind him, looking a bit dazed, then settling in to wait their turn. 

                “Really?” Brad asked, taking his little paper bowl of green tea ice cream and a plastic spoon.

                “He was here before.  Saw it happen,” Schuldig passed Nagi his fruit sorbet, and a horrendous concoction of vanilla with flags, cookies, gummies, sprinkles and god knows what else to a wide eyed Tot.  “One side of the road, all hell broke loose, the other, nothing.  Like a movie special effect, he said.  Unbelievable.  It just sunk into the ground and then the fires started and the buildings toppled, but get this, at certain times of the day, he can see them still standing.  That’s why everyone is gathered here.  Weird, no?” he pulled another mis-blown strand out of his eyes, and passed Farfarello a spoon for his ‘bloody mess’.  He picked up his own dish of plain vanilla and set the box on the ground with a rock in it to hold it against the breeze, to collect the trash in after.  He stuffed his mouth full of ice cream and noticed the look Brad was giving him.  “What?” he said, without swallowing first, then stuffed more ice cream in.

                “Nothing,” Brad said, bemused, then caught the knowing look Nagi was giving him. 

                “Hope—less,” Nagi sing-songed, quickly making sure he was out of kicking range.

                *             *             *

                Yuuji sat on the back fender of the Seven in the little alleyway parking lot the shop paid a fortune a month for, having decided that getting outside and away from the glare of death would be more facile to calling ‘old girlfriends’.

                So, Aya wasn’t too far off base.  Lucky his phone card still had the numbers in it. Or, was that _Aya’s luck_ at work again?

                Because one of the girls Kudoh Yohji had dated before(after he’d been hung up on any number of times for not remembering which ones were nurses _) had_ heard something about a mysterious ‘doctor’ on the other side.  People were risking their lives to sneak in there but he wouldn’t come out.  Basically, if you survived getting to him, you could be cured, that was the story.  And a very strange story it was.

                Yuuji looked at the time.  One last phone call to make, and then he’d have to put the phone on the charger. 

                Crawford picked up on the third ring, surprisingly.  “Yes?”  He sounded not too happy but not exactly unhappy? 

                “—Brad,” Yuuji said, catching himself just before he said another word.  “Last night go as planned?”

                “Well enough.  The organization certainly isn’t what it used to be.  What do you want now?”

                Yuuji wondered if this would ever be easy.  “I suppose I’m interrupting something.”

                “No, actually not.  Just waiting out the supper rush at the restaurant bar.  Just—keep it short.”

                “Anything yet on Shinjuku?”

                “A little, and all of it interesting.  Why?”

                “The rumors are getting very strange.  People are saying there’s someone in there who can cure terminal diseases.  Psychic healer or something.  Talent maybe?  And that if you get in there, it’s actually different each time.  And some people have gone in there for what seemed there like a month or two and come out to find out they’ve only been gone a day or two. Weird, no?  Sort of like the reverse of the legends.”

                “I’m beginning to believe that’s the case,” Brad said.  “We heard something similar today.  That someone who was watching the place on a daily basis has seen the towers standing at a certain time of day, usually just before the hour the collapse occurred.  What are you thinking?”

                Yuuji drew a deep breath.  _How much I_ miss _you._ “It’s just that Aya’s got some idea that this guy might cure his sister.”

                “Sarazawa, I can’t see into the future in that place, I have no idea of what might be waiting for you, or any of us.  It’s _not_ safe.  We’re investigating.  Stay out of there until I have enough answers.”

                Orders, always orders.  “Do you see him trying to get in there on his own?”

                “With that freak talent of his, who cares?  It’s _you_ I’m worried about!  Always rushing into things….” he went silent.

                Yuuji looked at his phone. The connection held.  He put it back to his ear.  “So—basically chain him up?”

                “Make him _wait_ , if you’re going to hold his damned hand.  Tell him people are working on it. It’s not like his sister’s going anywhere.” Brad said angrily.

                Yuuji looked up at the sky over the alleyway, darkening blue and dotted with clouds from the coast.  Same sky, same city, same island, same _world_ , and he felt like he was a universe away from the thing he wanted most. 

                “Tell him the truth.  You want to break Kritiker’s hold on him, tell him.  Same thing you told me, Yuuji, make up your fucking mind.  Decide who _you are_.  I need _you_.  I need you to be there when I call for you.  I need to know you’re still there.  Don’t let him get you killed _again_.”

                God damn it!  Yuuji pushed his hair back and wiped his eye with the base of his palm.  “I’m sorry I disturbed your evening,“ he said softly. 

                “No—I’ve—just got to get used to this fucking platonic bullshit.  Our table is ready; just tell him.  That will stop him in his tracks for a while.  I—Bye.”

                Yuuji closed his eyes and sighed, letting the pain do its thing for a while, until the worst had passed. 

                When he looked up again, Aya was standing over him.  Guy had cat feet.  “So, shoot,” he said, sardonically amused that of all the people he’d dealt with on a ‘personal’ level, Aya was the one who never handled a gun.  He swallowed the lump in his throat.  “Full of questions?”

                “Who are you?” Aya asked, looking down at him. 

                Damn it, Brad.  He really hadn’t expected that to happen so soon.  


	10. 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m going with the manga version of Aya-chan’s injuries, not the anime. In the manga she gets hit badly in the head with a huge block of concrete thrown by the explosion, where Ran is only muffed up a little.

            “I never thought of it before, but who are you?” Aya asked again quietly.  “Sometimes it seems like everyone in Kritiker but Hidaka has assumed a different name, all for different reasons—but I always assumed you really were Kudoh Yohji." He paused for a moment, sorting his thoughts. "That woman at the school, she spoke to you like she knew you.  And you knew her; not just from the file.  And she wasn’t saying ‘ _Weiss_ ’ all the time, she was saying ‘ _Vi-rus_ ’; two syllables,” he held up two fingers in a thin v, then let his hand drop.  

             Yuuji debated reaching to pull him close, or letting him have his moment of tense distrust.  He opted for putting his hands back and leaning back a little more, stretching his legs out and crossing his ankles.  He needed to de-tense himself, and it put him in a more psychologically submissive posture.  Let Aya burn off his adrenaline on his own.  “Recovering amnesia victim Sarazawa Yuuji. Code name ‘Virus’,” he smiled engagingly and gave him a little salute.  “Pleased to meet you.”

            Aya stood there, just looking at him. You could almost hear the gears grinding behind those purple eyes.  “You’re—Esset.”

            “Not any more, I’m not.  I’m officially dead.  I let some fools handle something I should have dealt with personally and got blown up for my stupidity.  Or, at least, I think that’s what happened.  I got knocked so silly I forgot what happened along with who I was.  Somehow, I ended up in the hands of Kritiker and their brain washing doctor.  He gave me a fake persona, and shit load of fake memories, complete with excess baggage to reinforce that persona. Those blinding headaches?  That was the start of my memory coming back.”

            “But—you helped kill them, their leaders who were at that ceremony.” Aya said.  “You turned on them, even after you remembered who you really were?”

            “No, I turned on them because an old friend asked me to.  The person who helped me recover when I was falling apart after finding out the truth.  That’s where I disappeared to for a while.”

            “You changed—you became—went back to being—,” Aya stammered now.  “I—,”

            Yuuji pushed himself upright again, leaning forward to look up at Aya over the tops of his sun glasses.  “The person I am now is the real me,” he stated.  “And the one who helped me, helped us survive the tower and nearly drowning, wants to destroy what’s left of Esset as much as Kritiker does.  For a far more personal reason.”

            “Why?” Aya asked in little more than a whisper. “Why tell me this?”

            Now, before the bud of paranoia blossomed.  He reached over to take Aya’s hand, holding  it in his.  “Because, I’m no one’s damned dog; not Kritiker, not Esset’s.”  He pressed his lips to Aya’s hand, on the back where the blood vessels were near the surface, then looked up at him again.  “And because my friend and I have planned this since we were kids together, in a place like Koua.”

            Aya pulled his hand free, momentarily thrown off his mental track again.  “Yohji.  What if this person—this ‘friend’ of yours—if _this_ person was the one who brain washed you.  If _this_ is the false memory?” 

            “Aya, in two years of you and I being around each other, day after day, getting on each other’s nerves, arguing and yeah, probably you hating me, { _and me thinking you a total ass, but I’m not saying_ that _aloud_ } I’m betting you suddenly found yourself falling for me _after_ ‘I’ started coming back.  Because it’s not Kudoh Yohji you’re in love with, is it?”

            Aya closed his eyes.   

            _‘No,’_ Yuuji thought, ‘ _Not Kudoh.  Me.  He fell for me.  And I wasn’t even trying. That’s worth something, isn’t it?’_

            Aya opened his eyes and looked down at him again.  “Sarazawa—Yuuji.  You _don’t_ smoke.  You _don’t_ drink a lot, and—you’re— _not_ straight?”

            Yuuji shook his head slowly, a smirk on his lips.  “Never was.” 

            “That sort of explains a lot,” the tone was neutral.

            “I know,” Yuuji agreed.  “You’d think a guy getting laid as often as I was would have been a lot more happy about it.  But it was only making me more miserable, because that nut doctor overlooked that one important little point.” He reached out to take Aya by the hips and shake him a little.  “I’ll be honest with you, Gorgeous” he stood up and put his hand on Aya’s cheek.  “Things are a hell of a lot better now.”  He kissed him tenderly, just enough to see if he’d rise for more.  Otherwise…. 

            Aya closed his eyes and kissed back, his hands going to Yuuji’s shoulders.   Yuuji thought he was going to push him away, but then he put his arms around him. 

              Yuuji held him tighter.  Aya was smaller, thinner than what he wanted in the back of his mind, but something about him fit.  Or maybe he’d just gotten too used to women.  Creepy thought.  He was doing pretty good at ditching _those_ memories.  And he knew just how to clear his mind of them right now.  He sat back down on the fender and pulled Aya close to run his hands up under his t-shirt, pushing it up and kissing his flat stomach and waist and letting his hands roam over the tightly muscled chest and flanks.  Aya was pretty taunt from swinging that sword. 

            “Yohji—,” Aya breathed as he unbuttoned and unzipped those black jeans. 

            “Just relax, Aya,” Yuuji said, pulling them down just far enough to run his tongue up the still half trapped flesh. 

            Aya pulled away like he’d been stung, holding him off, then tucked himself back in and zipped up.  “Not here.” He turned and walked toward the back door to the shop, then threw a look over his shoulder to make sure Yuuji was following him. 

            “That went well,” Yuuji murmured, then stood up and followed him up to his room. 

            *          *          *

            Something was wrong.  Ken hesitated before opening the shop door and hoped he wasn’t going to walk in on something yet again that he’d been taught all his teen years was just wrong.  He took a deep breath, set himself to face anything, and pushed the door open.

            Nope.  The radio was on quietly to some pop station, and even more horrifying than Yohji and Aya making out on the counter, or on the table, or up against the window, or some nightmarish thing, was Aya happily humming along to the girly pop song and laying out the flowers from the early morning pick up at the market.  Gone was glaring, full of hate like a wet alley cat Aya and here was this strange transformation.  “What have you done with Aya!” Ken demanded, ready to fight.

            Aya glared at him.  “What the hell is wrong with you now, Hidaka?”

            Ah, so it was the real Aya.  “My mistake,” he said, rubbing the back of his head, a little embarrassed.  “So you really think this guy might be able to cure your sister?” that would explain everything.  Aya had hope?

            Aya frowned.  “It’s worth a try.  Yohji is making breakfast. Since you’re up, get the boys out of bed.  I’m going to take a look around today and see if there’s a way into Shinjuku, and I want the shop to look normal in case Manx shows her face again.”

            “You can’t go in there by yourself!  I’ve heard what’s happened in there.  It’s worse than—than New York!”

            Aya looked at him.  “This is Japan, Ken, it can’t be that bad.  People are just exaggerating.”

            “And they can’t be exaggerating about this miracle working doctor?  There have been false healers before after disasters.”

            “Medical. Records. Ken.” Aya’s bright mood clicked off with the radio.  He slung the various color roses into the hanging baskets for loose bouquets with a violence reserved for throwing knives. 

            Yuuji opened the other door, a waft of cooking eggs and savories drifting in behind him and looked at Aya.  “Alright, who broke the spell?” he said sardonically.  “Ken.”

            “I could go back upstairs and come down again, but I think this day has already started,” Ken complained, getting the chore chart clipboard down from its hook.  “Do you realize we used up all the fertilizer?” He looked at Yuuji.  “That’s going to show up on the accounts.  It will tip them off if we buy more.”

            “Use your charming personality,” Aya said maliciously. 

            “Then it’s coming out of pocket,” Yuuji said, pulling out his own wallet.

            Ken blinked.  Okaaaay, this was some bizarre looking-glass-land; Aya happy, Yohji paying for things.  He pinched his arm.  Nope, he was awake. 

            Wait—Yohji could _cook_?

            He pinched himself again. 

            Oh, oh, the world had ended and he was stuck with those left behind or something.  No, that was an Evangelical Protestant thing.  What was the Catholic version of hell on Earth? 

            “Ken!” Aya snapped.  “Enough is enough.  Go get the boys!”

            “Soccer is more dangerous than American football,” Yohji told Aya, tapping his head.  “No helmets.”

            “Tchah!” Ken fled the room.

            *          *          *

            “Ken’s losing his mind,” Yuuji said in the Seven.  He’d made the decision to take his car, since the thing was becoming a sore thumb.  If anything happened to it, he wasn’t going to cry. He wondered what had prompted this thing in the first place?  More of that damned doctor’s pipe dreams?  Living vicariously through his victims?  When he laid it all out objectively, the whole personality of Kudoh Yohji was nothing but fiction trops.  Why not an Aston Martin, for crisakes? And why had he just pushed in the lighter knob? 

            “Killing those kids got to him,” Aya was going through the prints outs Omi had given him.  They didn’t use a lot of tech, it could be so easily compromised.  The best way to deal with certain things was straight to printer and then fire.  “If these aren’t true, then what good would a scam like this do the hospitals who are reporting the miraculous cures of their patients. It’s costing them money, after all.”

            “Makes sense,” Yuuji said. “Just—don’t pin too much on this, okay?  Tumors and things like that, it might all be the human body, but it’s not the same as all that fine wiring in the nerves and things.”

            Aya was silent for a while.  They were nearing the barriers on the Arakawa.  “Can we stop somewhere not so close, before the falls?”

            Upstate New York now had nothing on the Arakawa.  Thousands of gallons of what had been rather a lazy river now thundered into what authorities were now cautiously estimating a mile deep gorge.  A haze of mist rose up well before the drop.  You couldn’t really see anything.  They were already building a barrier to contain the water supply before it became a bigger problem.  The Toei line bridge seemed to float over the mist, dipping in the middle where its supports had gone down with the crevasse.  You couldn’t see where it reached the other side.    

            Yuuji parked the car on a pull over spot where before you could just watch the river and the bridge and picnic or enjoy fireworks on matsuri nights.  People would come out to jog, bike, play ball games, or fly kites, or get up to things their parents probably wouldn’t want to hear of.  Now there were more people than usual, but it still wasn’t crowded enough to be unable to put out a blanket and sit.  This in mind, Yuuji opened the boot and pulled out the one he kept in there. 

            They found a place on the slope a bit further away from the little clumps of groups and sat down. 

            “So what can we figure out from here?” Yuuji said, lifting his sunglasses to see if he could see anything beyond the mist. 

            “The rumors are that at certain times of day, the towers show up.  Mostly just before the time the quake happened.  Someone else is interested,” Aya pointed out a small group with a camera on a stand, a telescope and other instruments, sighting through them and making notes. 

            “Maybe the towers survived?” Yuuji looked around.  “Maybe the mist and dust or whatever just makes it look like they came down?” he heard the ‘whup-whup-whup’ of a helicopter coming over and looked up.  It wasn’t just another little News bug, but a huge olive green thing, making their vital organs throb in their bodies as it went across the river low and fast.  “Hmm, I wonder what they’re up to?”

            Three more came in, just as quick and fast.  The crowd started to murmur. 

            Yuujis’ phone was buzzing in his pocket.  He glanced at Aya and took it out.  “Moshi-mosh,” he answered after checking the screen. 

            “Sight seeing?”

            “Yes,” he said neutrally. 

            “It looks like the Americans are going to go in after the Prime Minister and their General.”

            “Ah,” Yuuji said. 

            “Probably not going to be pretty.”

            “Ah.”

            “Do you think you could get close when they come out?”

            “Can I?” Brad’s suggestions were usually flat out what he was expecting someone to do anyway, but Yuuji wanted to be certain. 

            “It wouldn’t hurt,”

            “Not even a little?”

            “Not even a little,” he sounded amused now. 

            “Am I getting paid for this?” Yuuji asked.

            “Mercenary.  I thought you’d do it just for the sake of our deep and abiding childhood friendship.”

            “Hell no; pay me. I have expenses,” Yuuji snorted.  Damn his spying.

            Sigh.  “The money will be in your account.”

            “That’s better.  I won’t even ask how the hell you know my account number,” Yuuji laughed a little.  

            “Later, then,” Brad said, and the connection was dropped.

            He put the phone away and looked at Aya who was watching him with that evilly suspicious glare only he could manage to such perfection. 

            “Your ‘ _friend’_?” Aya stated.

             “He wants me to try and find out what the military finds out in there.”

            Aya toned it down a little, but still looked irritated. 

            Yuuji leaned over and bumped him with his shoulder. 

            Aya looked at him again.

            “You didn’t think of it first?” Yuuji said, a teasing challenge in his voice.

            “Go to hell, Kudoh,” Aya stated.

            “’Go to hell, Sa-ra-za-wa’” Yuuji corrected, then lay down on the blanket, looking up at him.  “It’s going to be a while,” he purred suggestively.  “It’s a lovely day. We might as well cuddle a little.”

            Blushing, Aya looked around to see if anyone had noticed this scandalous invitation. 

            “It’s the 21st century, Aya, don’t be such a prig,” Yuuji said.  

            Aya laid down and scooched a bit closer, pillowing his head on his own arm.  “What’s your ‘friend’s’ interest in Shinjuku?”

            “The ritual Esset was trying to pull off failed, but the timing says someone else was doing the same thing.  Trying to summon something not so very nice into this world.”

            “You realize this is insane.  Magic, people with supernatural powers, it’s all insane,” Aya complained. 

            “Aya, you’re laying there with naturally red hair and purple eyes, you don’t think that’s a bit odd for a Japanese?”

            Aya huffed out a breath.  “It’s just a freak thing, like a strawberry birthmark, that’s all.  It has nothing to do with magic or rituals,” he said sullenly. “People just assumed that because my parents had money, it was dye and contacts.”

            No but explain your sister, Yuuji thought.  How can she not have aged one day since being injured?  Unless someone’s just exaggerating.  And comas can be induced chemically.  Someone inside Kritiker might have been keeping her doped up for Esset’s plans.  But why use a brain dead girl? 

            “And you?  What are you, Mister Exotic?”

            “Just another halfu,” Yuuji said. No need to complicate things with the truth. 

            Aya was watching the mist the helicopters had disappeared into.   “And Esset?  You said a school like Koua.”

            Yuuji sighed.  “My parents fell for the spiel,” he cropped it right down to the tiniest facts.  Third generation crazy secret society out to take over the world probably wouldn’t go over very well at this stage in their relationship.  “At first, it’s just like any other elite boarding school.  Then around middle school age, they start sorting the kids out; unusual talents, abilities, intelligence and aptitudes are groomed to serve the organization.  If you live to graduate, you’re sent out into the world, to be placed strategically. A lady in waiting in the Queen’s household, an accountant in a Chinese firm that happens to move a lot of technological goods out of Malaysia, a hotel maid in New York, an army major in Yugoslavia, translator in Bahrain, mine supervisor in Australia.  A human satellite network, all relaying information back to the main office.  You do realize this is the ‘if I tell you, I’ll have to kill you’ shit,” he smiled.

            “I think we passed that point last night,” Aya said quietly.  “Besides, I can have the knife in my boot at your throat before you blink.”

            “Now who’s insane?” Yuuji turned on his side, propped up his head and reached over to trace Aya’s collar bones.  “Last night was pretty hot. Were you trying to convince me not to kill you?  Now that you know too much about my secret true identity?”

            Aya blushed.  “Don’t be an ass.  I thought _you_ were trying to convince _me_ ,” he growled.

            Which was probably a little closer to the truth than felt comfortable.  He put his finger over Aya’s lips, looking into his eyes.  “What if we just get your sister out of Kritiker’s hands and see if the medication she’s on isn’t keeping her in a coma on purpose before we go into that mess over there?”

            Aya frowned.

            “Think about it,” Yuuji urged.  “Do you even _know_ what medications she’s been on all this time? At least quietly get her blood tested by some lab somewhere and find out what she’s being doped up with.”

            Aya looked distressed.  “No,” he said. “I don’t—know anything about that stuff.”

            A ‘boom’ from the other side of the crevasse made them both sit up and stare.  A stream of black smoke snaked up through the misty haze over Shinjuku. 

            “Ouch,” Yuuji said.  “There goes another helicopter.”


	11. 11

“Now’s as good a time as any,” Yuuji got up and reached down to offer Aya a hand. “Come on, let’s go!” For a moment he thought he might not take it, then Aya stopped hesitating and let himself be half hauled to his feet. 

“What are we going to do?”

“What else? Go ask questions,” Yuuji grabbed up the blanket and lead the way back to the car. Opening the trunk he tossed the blanket in and unlatched what looked like a tool box. He rummaged inside, moving a tray and pulling out a camera bag, then some plastic tags on lanyards. He tossed Aya a soft bound note book with a couple of pens stuck in it. “Instant reporter kit,” he grinned, draping a lanyard over Aya’s head and tugging it down to hang straight. 

Aya picked it up to look at it. “Hey, who’s this guy?”

“I don’t know, it was there, so I took it. No one ever looks at ID tags anyway,” Yuuji slammed the trunk shut. “Come on, let’s go!” 

Aya’s legs were long for his height, but he had to work to keep up with Yuuji, and they were momentarily stunned by two more explosions over Shinjuku. “What do I do?” he hissed as they hit the fringe of the crowd.

“Listen to the others, then ask the same things in a different order, and write things down,” Yuuji took out the camera and looked around, then pulled out an extension lens and screwed it on. There wasn’t much to see, but he focused and started taking photos anyway. /Schuldig, what did you see?/ he asked, almost certain that the telepath would pick up on the directly addressed thought.

/Nothing,/ the slightly accented voice responded with a strange mingling of frustration and annoyance focused on the ‘nothing’ rather than being contacted. That was the thing with telepaths; you not only got the frown, you got the why of the frown, when it was going both ways. /Not a damned thing once they entered that mist./

He kept taking photos from different angles, catching the smoke plume, for what it was worth. /How far in did they get before it blocked you?/

/The inner edge of the crevasse,/ his attention was taken up by another task. 

Yuuji looked at Aya who was trying his best to yell with the other reporters barking questions at the public servants on the scene. One or two of them snapped at Aya, demanding to know what news outlet he was with, but he snarled right back at them and kept demanding to know what the American Military thought they could do that the SDF couldn’t. 

Yuuji took a few more photos, wondering at the effect of the mist, and moved to back up Aya against the horde. 

“Is this North Korea’s responsibility!” Aya bellowed over the crowd. “Has Japan been openly attacked? Is the American Military covering it up.” 

This came as a brilliant idea to the other reporters who picked up the question and started demanding more variations on it. It evolved from ‘conspiracy to cover up an attack from North Korea’ to ‘manufactured reason to occupy Japan again’.” 

“That’s enough of that!” one of the huge soldiers stated after being spoken to by one of the officers standing there sweating in their dress uniforms. “You there, let’s see some ID!”

“I’m a Japanese citizen, you have no right to ask me for any ID!” Aya retorted. 

“This area is now under martial law!” one of the American officers announced. “Clear the area, or you will be taken into custody by the JSDF! No more questions!”

Yuuji caught Aya by the arm, holding on tightly. “Aya—,”

The soldier aimed his rifle at Aya and two more automatically followed suit. “I said ID, now!”

One of the SDF officers spoke sharply to another of the American officers, “What is this! They are reporters doing their job! We’ll clear them away, but put those guns down! You can’t point guns at Japanese citizens!”

“He’s inciting a riot with those questions,” the Officer said. “That’s potential terrorism.” 

“What riot!” Yuuji demanded, his ‘oh shit’ meter hitting the red zone. “Do you see a riot here?”

The ‘other’ reporters had been shocked into silence and now started taking photographs again and writing furiously. Old ladies at a time sale on Chinese lettuce would have made more of a riot. 

“Confiscate those cameras!” the American officer ordered. “Arrest that man. And that one!” he pointed to Yuuji. “Arrest them all! We’ll sort them out later! Lock down this whole area!” 

“Stop that this instant!” the head of the SDF ordered over him. “Japan is a sovereign nation and we will not tolerate this!”

Yuuji hauled Aya away from the soldiers while the yelling match continued. “Aya, what the hell?” he laughed, dragging them into a run for the car. 

“I don’t know it just seemed like—I don’t know,” Aya said, looking a bit confused. 

Yuuji was treated to an evil laugh on a thinning mental connection. /OH VERY FUNNY!/ he mentally yelled back. 

* * *

“Why are we doing this?” Schuldig asked. “I thought we were done with Esset and their stupid orders. Let’s go someplace nice and lay on the beach.”

“I officially hate the beach,” Brad stated, raising the binoculars to his eyes again, careful not to scratch his glasses. “And I’m not running when I have the advantage. Besides, it gives you hideous freckles.”

“You said my freckles were cute, now they are hideous?”

“A light dusting of freckles across the cheeks are ‘cute’; turning freakishly orange in huge patches of sun toughened hide is hideous.”

“Vampire,” Schuldig grumbled. 

“Incubus.”

“Don’t start,” Nagi said. “I swear, it’s like you’re on vacation from being grownups. Just. Stop.”

“He’s definitely at that age,” Schuldig said. “Everything we say, do, don’t do, or even think is going to embarrass him in front of the whole universe,” he added in a complaining drawl.

Brad sighed. “This is why I refuse to breed.”

“No, you refuse to breed because Schuldig would look stupid with a baby bump, a big ass, and fat ankles.” Nagi fired off the devastating blow. 

“That, too,” Brad said mildly. “Don’t, Schuldig, you know it’s a waste of bullets.”

“You’re all mad,” Farfarello opined, looking across the chasm like a restless hunting dog on a scent. “Let’s just go in there.” 

“Patience, Jei,” Brad stated, then looked at the boy. “Nagi, you are aware of the birds and the bees, aren’t you?”

“What? Yes!” Nagi blushed. “It was a JOKE.”

“Oh good, for a moment there, I was worried,” Brad went back to watching the sky over Shinjuku. 

/Touché, meine Mann,/ Schuldig grinned at him. 

/Back to work, Schuldig,/ Brad thought back grimly. /What the hell are the Americans up to now?/ he lowered the binoculars to look over at where the yelling was getting louder. The possibilities on the timeline were all over the place. 

/As usual, trying to take over the world for its own good./ Schuldig looked over at the yelling match between the officers of the JSDF and the American military. /Whoah, it just got personal!/ 

The SDF officer had thrown down his hat, purple with rage, and had shoved the general or what ever he was on his ass. 

“Cover your eyes, Nagi. Such violence a child should not see,” Schuldig snickered. 

Brad looked at him in dismay. “Bad telepath.”

“You said create a distraction.”

“A distraction, not an international incident,” Brad droned. “Save it for later, when we’ll actually need it.”

“Ah, but the ground work is now laid,” Schuldig informed him. “All this bad feeling will go off like a big stink bomb later.” 

“You’re horrible,” Farfarello said, impressed. 

Schuldig bowed in elegant mockery. “I do my worst,” he said modestly. 

* * *

Yuuji tossed Aya the first liter bottle of green tea from the machine and put in the money to get one for himself. “I missed that,” he said after a few swallows, grinning. 

“Missed what?” Aya opened his tea and gulped down half the bottle. “Did you do that sort of thing often before—before this?” he swirled the bottle indicating the general theory of everything current.

“A little,” Yuuji admitted, leaning on the wall beside the vending machine. 

“Sometimes you smile like that when we’re on a mission,” Aya looked at him ruefully. “I always knew that you wouldn’t go drinking and make a fool of yourself on nights after you smiled like that.”

Yuuji blinked. “Really?” he drank another mouthful of tea. It was good to see Aya smile so relaxed, too. 

“If Esset is so evil, why are you—so—you?” Aya asked. 

Yuuji shrugged. “Now you see, there’s the question. True, sometimes it’s a matter of just killing someone because they are there, but most of the time it’s just corporate bullshit with a bullet. It’s so much easier to just shoot the competition in the head than play at outmaneuvering them or ruining their reputation and all that crap. In the end, organizations like ours prey on each other first, and criminals are criminals whether those organizations exist or not. You’re always going to have creepy people doing horrible things. Always. The thing is Esset really does want a better world for a lot more people. Provided those people want to go back to being medieval slaves and selectively bred like cattle for best service, that is. What the hell does Kritiker want?”

“I meant why are you so sexy?” Aya said, slightly exasperated. 

“You really are a bimbo air head, aren’t you?” Yuuji asked him seriously. 

“You’re going to die when we get home.”

“No, an airhead like you will completely forget by the time we pull into the alley way,” Yuuji asserted, finishing up his ice tea and putting the bottle in the recycling bin. 

“I hate you,” Aya laughed, nearly choking on his tea.

“Say that again when I’m doing that thing that makes your toes curl,” Yuuji poked him in the chest and then pulled his nose in passing. 

Aya blushed and then smiled some more, finishing his tea on the way to the car. 

* * *

“NO! I’m not drugging her up or leaving her tied up again!” Nagi stood his ground. “Either she comes with, or I stay!”

“Her presence is straining the team!” Crawford was just as loud. 

“I can be alert!” Nagi insisted. “She’s not completely mindless, you know! She can function in a fight.” Behind him, clinging to the back of his shirt, Tot nodded emphatically but was too terrified of Crawford to say anything.

“In a fight, yes, but are we going to end up fighting in there, or remaining covert, I DON’T KNOW!”

“Yelling is upsetting the next door neighbors,” Schuldig said aloud from where he was sitting on the sofa reading the TV channel magazine. 

“Screw the fucking neighbors; we’re moving!” Brad snapped. “If they want peace and quiet, they can go back to France!” he yelled louder deliberately.

“You’d think the French would be more accepting,” Farfarello said. “Liberty, Equality, Wine and all that. Are we going to watch the Godzilla marathon or not?”

“It’s the bullets that get to them,” Schuldig licked a finger and turned a page. “I can make them forget everything but the irrational fear that ‘Death Comes From the Side’ we’re on, and the therapy isn’t helping them. A thing like that leaves a mark on the psyche as well as the walls. Is Godzilla even relevant anymore?”

“What’s ‘relevancy’ got to do with it?” one vulpine eye focused on him. “It’s a movie.”

“I don’t know, what’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer got to do with relevancy? Honestly these people don’t have anything better to be ranting on about than fantasy being relevant to reality, intellectual censorship in the name of social justice, hysterical feminism, plastic surgery gone bad, and—poo transplants?” Schuldig said the last in disgust, throwing the magazine over his shoulder where it fluttered to the floor. “That’s it, I’m killing everyone.” 

“Well, I’m watching Godzilla,” Farfarello clicked the remote.

Brad felt his phone vibrate and yanked it out of his pocket. “What?” he snarled as the ominous iconic music of Toho Productions filled the room. 

“Bad moment?” Yuuji asked in German.

“Lately every moment is bad,” Brad said through clenched teeth. “What do you want?” He deliberately stuck with Japanese. 

“Sounds like somebody needs a hug.”

“I’m changing your code name to Toxic,” Brad informed him. “Why don’t you just roll over and play dead, Sarazawa?” 

“Why don’t you stop flirting and give me some information?”

Brad held the phone away from his ear and stared at it in utter disbelief. 

“Blood pressure,” Schuldig warned, tired of reminding him. 

Brad took a deep breath and put the phone back to his ear. “It’s a little too early in our non-relationship to act like nothing’s wrong. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”

“CAKE! Where!” Tot squealed. 

Nagi rolled his eyes, shoved his hair back with his hand in a gesture he was using all too often lately in subconscious imitation and turned to get her calmed down. 

Brad strode for the bedroom and slammed the door on the nonsense. Not that it did anything more than muffle it. “Let’s start this conversation again.” He said in German. “What do you want?”

“Look, I know life isn’t exactly a box of kittens right now—,”

Brad snorted rudely, “Uncalled for, Sarazawa,” he said grimly. “Now I can finally say it; you’re an idiot. Not entirely surprised you blew yourself up.”

“Smile, asshole.”

“Shut up, Jerk.”

“See, nothing’s changed; we’re just not having sex with each other anymore.”

“And this makes you happy?”

“No, but we can try to be mature about it and let bygones be bygones.”

“Why are we even having this conversation!” Oh god, he was having an epiphany! He was irrationally attracted to insane men who made no fucking sense! 

“Well I was going to ask if we could crash at your place for a little while, but I’ll settle for who’s been playing Kritiker off against Esset the past few months. It can’t just be you. This was going on before the big day. Someone’s eventually going to ruin our plans with their big mouth.”

“NO. And yes, I’ve noticed. Up until this point it hasn’t been an issue; since we were ordered to systematically kill every Kritiker agent we came across anyway and it was quite convenient. Now you’re saying this is a problem?”

“Just a little concerned I might be recognized, and be ratted out,” Yuuji said. “Although I’m not so sure I haven’t already been. They put an awful lot of effort into screwing my head up, didn’t they?” 

“Well go get plastic surgery and dye your hair or something.” Brad said meanly. Maybe then, he’d be able to get over this useless emotional connection.

“Not ruining this fabulous face, and I think I look pretty good with dark hair, thank you. It brings out the green in my eyes.”

“So you want the spy, I take it.” Brad had had quite enough of his ego for the day. 

“Kritiker has got us in a holding pattern while they piss on their own feet and complain about their shoes being soaked. The nut job needs someone to kill, I’m just avoiding it being me.”

“I’ll look into it.” Brad said.

“I mean it; we have dibs. You just get me the name.”

“Oh, grow up, Mister ‘let’s be mature about it’.” Brad pressed the red button and put his phone back in this pocket. He walked over to lean on the window frame and look out across the city. Then he unclenched his fist and walked back out to deal with the things he could control.


	12. 12

“…ceremony today, the Emperor today formally expressed his sympathy and concern for the families of those in the Shinjuku disaster. The government is working to contain the area…” 

Yuuji hit the button and silenced the radio that had come blaring on. 

Aya made a sound between a whimper and a grumble and turned over, taking all the blankets with him and pulling them up over his head. 

“Oh, no you don’t,” Yuuji grabbed a handful of fabric and yanked back. 

Aya groaned again and turned back over to cuddle up to him. 

“That’s more like it,” Yuuji said. 

“Who fucking set the god damned alarm anyway?” Aya muttered, not even bothering to open his eyes. 

“Omi being passive aggressive again,” Yuuji murmured, trying to get back to sleep. If he waited long enough, the urge to get up and smother his lungs in cigarette smoke would go away. 

“I’m going to kill him.”

“Go back to sleep,” Yuuji complained. 

“Can’t, getting hard.” Aya softly laughed after a few minutes.

“S’just a pee hard on, go to the bathroom. Either that or killing Omi seriously turns you on.” 

A hand smacked him a stinging blow on the flank and Aya climbed over him to get up, taking half the blankets with him and heading for the door. 

“Bitch! Enjoy your walk of shame,” Yuuji complained, hauling the now tangled blankets back on to the bed and trying to get comfortable again. 

He was almost slipping back into that soft dark pre-conscious place when Aya yanked the blankets off. “What the fuck?” 

Aya finished straightening out the blankets and crawled back into bed to put his arms around him. “Still hard.”

“I noticed,” Yuuji grumbled. “Aren’t we going to go check on your little sister today?”

“Yooooh-ji,” Aya’s hard on was invading his personal space now. 

“Rape,” Yuuji complained. Nothing like a poke in the back of the balls to destroy all attempts at sleep.

“…are setting up guard stations at Yotsuya, Tsurumakicho, and Yonchome, to keep matters under control…” the radio started again. “Concerns over the genetic laboratories located in the effected district have been raised by the unusual creatures attempting to cross the chasm…”

“Damn snooze setting,” Yuuji said, sitting up and smacking it again, this time making sure he hit the right button. Then he realized something. “Unusual? As in—two headed dogs and the like?” He reached for the radio again

Aya tackled him. 

* * *

“Yohji, these photos you took,” Omi had the file up on the screen, “Look.” 

Yuuji put the box of new ikebana dishes down and walked over to the bench. “Anything?”

“Look,” Omi pointed at the screen. “This is 009, this is 010 and 011. Look.” He scrolled back and forth through the frames. Then he pulled them up side by side and enlarged the screen. “Look at the date time stamps, too.”

009 had nothing but the smoke and the mist, so did 010, but in the middle, only a second apart, 011 showed structures behind the mist. The skyscrapers of Shinjuku behind the smoke. 

“I’ll be damned,” Yuuji breathed. 

“Now look at these,” Omi brought up three more. It was the same thing, but in this case, the camera had caught a shimmering effect, like a prism, and in the next one, the towers were there again. Then the frame after that, nothing, back to mist and black smoke. 

“This one,” Omi pointed to the one with the prism effect. “It must have caught—maybe a heat mirage?”

“Give me a copy of that,” Yuuji said. “Flash drive, disk, whatever; I need a copy I can take to someone who knows their stuff with photography.”

“I know how to handle photographs,” Omi said, a bit insulted.

“I need an independent opinion,” Yuuji stated. “And not just playing around with photo-shop, but someone who can tell if a photo’s been altered on a computer and vouch for it in court. We don’t want to get accused of being scammers, now do we?”

Omi frowned but got up and found a flash drive floating around in the drawer under the register counter and plugged it into his laptop. “Why would we have to prove anything in court?” he sat back down again to stroke in the commands on the touch pad.

“Because Kritiker IS the police,” Yuuji reminded him. “And they’re very anal about proof. Most of the time.”

Omi finished transferring the photos and handed it to him. 

“Give me the camera, too,” Yuuji said. “You left the photos in the chip?”

“Yes, I just copied them out; I know better than to erase anything!”

“I’m not telling you your job, Omi, I’m just making sure for my own sanity,” Yuuji assured him. “Where’s your shadow?”

Omi looked at him in confusion. 

“Sena-kun?” Yuuji asked. He hadn’t seen the kid all morning. 

“He said he had something to do,” Omi said. “He’d be back later.”

“Hunh,” Yuuji wondered what it might be. Frankly he hoped the kid was looking for his remaining family. ‘Yohji’ would be concerned, Yuuji was just a little on the side of ‘who cares’. He flipped a mental coin. ‘Yuuji’ won. “Let me know if he doesn’t turn up.”

“Hey, where are you going, this is your shift!” Omi called after him as he grabbed his keys off the rack. 

“What did I just say?” Yuuji called back over his shoulder. “Go tell Aya to get his ass out of bed.”

“And who’s fault is it he’s still in bed, you pervert!” Omi yelled. “Are you trying to get me killed?” 

* * *

“You have a nerve,” Schuldig stepped aside and let him with a nasty glare. 

“You’re bugging out?” Yuuji saw the suitcases lined up. He couldn’t describe the pang of confusion this struck in his being. Was Brad leaving Japan?

“Moving,” Crawford came to the door way of the bedroom, stopping there to look at him. “Things have gotten a bit tight here. And we have no reason to stay in discretely reduced circumstances, since we’re no longer tied to the Takatori clan.”

“Lucky you. I’ve still got one screwing with my alarm clock,” Yuuji didn’t move either. 

“You—look well. How’s your head?”

“Still,“ Yuuji gestured at his scalp. “adjusting to myself. It’s more difficult, at the moment.”

“You!” Tot spotted him from the hall way and launched at him, fingers clawed. “Weiss! You killed Neu!”

Nagi stopped her in her tracks, a little too fast, a little too tight and for a moment she nearly died. He let her go in shock and she fell to the floor, gasping, her heart struggling. “I’m sorry!” he exclaimed. “I’m sorry!” he knelt by her, not knowing what to do except watch her struggle. 

“She’ll live,” Brad said. “Schuldig, deal with her.”

“And just what do you expect me to do?” Schuldig asked. “When most of the things I want to do are forbidden and most of the things you want to do are—“ he glanced at Nagi, “Inadvisable.”

Brad looked irritated. “Just make her forget she ever saw him in connection with that woman.”

Schuldig frowned in frustration. “Here goes another head ache. Nagi, put her on the bed in the room.”

“He can work that surgically?” Yuuji asked, surprised. 

“I told you, he’s quite good. Otherwise I’d have shot him and disposed of him ages ago.”

“I heard that!” Schuldig called from Farfarello’s ex-room.

Brad smacked his hands together. “Well; coffee?” he offered. “We haven’t packed up the kitchen yet.”

“I could use one. You know why I’m here?”

“Not really. Probably not to help carry these down to the hired van. I’ve been too busy with my own future. But I can guess. Shinjuku?” He walked over and opened a cupboard to get some mugs down. 

Yuuji lifted the camera case off his shoulder and set it on the small table beside the suite’s kitchenette. 

Brad was dishabille; no tie, his shirt unbuttoned to the second button, sleeves rolled up to just his elbows, an older pair of slacks. It was a look Yuuji hadn’t seen in years. It brought back memories of picnics and late nights, smiles and arguments. Proust and his damned cookies, Yuuji thought. I really should just—not be here. 

He sat down, the table between him and what he suddenly longed for. He drew a breath and cleared his lungs, hoping it would take the dust of long past days in his brain with it. “I think I’ve photographed it, the effect.”

“Interesting,” Brad said, pushing the button on the coffee maker. He turned and leaned back on the counter, crossing his arms. “What do you make of it?”

Yes, those arms were still quite muscular under the fine cotton, Yuuji noted. To see him fully dressed, you didn’t think he would be so well built under it all. Just another business man in a suit. Naked, Lysippus would shit himself and grab a chisel. 

He did need that coffee. “It’s—like your talent. Waves, you once said? Like waves on the beach.”

“Sort of. Somewhere out there are key events that are like a pebble dropped in a pond. The waves are just the parts of the ripples a precognitive sees.”

“So, why can’t this be like that? Too many waves coming at once. All that white noise the telepaths complain about.”

Brad nodded slowly. “So when the waves fade for a bit, the towers appear? But that would imply that the entire event is still ongoing, looped.”

“How horrible,” Yuuji realized. “Is it possible? Those people are dying over and over again?”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Why?” 

“Because the universe isn’t static. To say the event is stuck in a loop is to imply that the universe would allow it to be static. And because Fate can be changed.”

“I’d forgotten how much I hate it when you babble physics at me,” Yuuji smiled. 

“Then let me put it this way, if it were possible, we’d be surrounded by ghosts. But then I’m telling you that.”

“I’m not a ghost,” he chuckled.

“Aren’t you? Haunting me?” Brad said a fraction closer to ‘sad’ rather than ‘joking’. He turned to deal with the coffee maker’s imitation of death throes. “The most over dramatic piece of household equipment one can own,” he muttered, dividing the finished brew into the mugs. 

“You mean next to a telepath?” Yuuji said. 

“I wouldn’t tempt Fate,” Brad said. “I hear it’s got it out for you.”

“You’re horrible.” Yuuji had forgotten how much he missed their little gestalt. “Remember when you used to mock the seniors by saying the crap they were going to throw at you before they could say it?”

“Like waving a red cape in front of a bull,” Brad set his mug in front of him, but stepped back before Yuuji could even think of reaching out to catch his arm. “They must have practiced in front of mirrors and then when they had their big moment on stage, I stepped on their lines. Charge, slam, all over but the screaming,” he sipped his coffee. 

Yuuji noted that he was still keeping one arm across himself, pinned to his side by the elbow of the hand holding the mug. Defensive? Why? Ah well, may he should stop thinking about it. He forced himself to sit back, to let his muscles un-tense. “As much as I’d like to, I’ll mind my manners,” he promised. 

Brad acknowledged this by sitting down on the other side of the table, careful not to put his legs under it, where they might brush Yuuji’s. “But what has that to do with Shinjuku?”

“Not a damned thing,” he replied fondly. “I’m just being maudlin. Or maybe I want to see you beat the crap out of someone for old time’s sake,” he picked up his mug.

“I can think of someone,” Brad smiled evilly.

“No,” Yuuji said firmly. “I take it you haven’t meant to kill him before.”

“No, but things always change, don’t they? So. Shinjuku,” he set his mug down with a bit of a thump to bring the conversation back to ground. 

“I’ve convinced Fujimiya (he’d almost said ‘Aya’) to get his sister’s blood tested. He doesn’t even know what medications they’ve got her on. That will slow him down a bit. But what is going on with that girl? What is she, a sleeping beauty talent or something?”

“What genetic advantage to the species would there be in that? Still, I suppose there are stupider things in the universe.” 

“Platypi,” Yuuji said. 

“Platypodes” Brad corrected automatically. “Stop it.” 

“Just look, or I’ll drive you mad,” Yuuji threatened. 

“And what are you going to tell him if I do? That you had some fortune teller look into the future for you?”

“He’s aware of Esset’s Talents. But yeah, you’re right, he’d go ballistic if he knew it was you I’d been fraternizing with,” Yuuji frowned. “Still, I’d like to know what I’m in for.”

Brad looked at him steadily in silence for a moment. “Cheater. You want to know which way to jump, don’t you?”

“I’m not taking advantage of you, I’m asking politely.”

“After he takes her into Shinjuku, I have no way of seeing.” Brad said honestly. “And he is going to take her in there. With or without your help.”

“What if I kill her first?”

Brad’s eyebrows went up. “That’s not even a possibility, why would you even say that?”

“What shocks you more?” Yuuji pounced on this. 

“That you’d even consider something so alien to who you are,” Brad frowned at him. “She’s a non-combatant. Patently, I might add, to play Captain Obvious.” 

“It was just a thought,” Yuuji subsided back into sipping his coffee. “Something about him makes me just want to set it free, whatever that—thing is inside him. Do you think—is it possible that they got the wrong sibling? The girl is just a distraction?”

Brad blankly stared at him. 

“His talent, it was going to sacrifice his own sister to spare him?” Yuuji said, the whole thing just as much a shock to him.

Brad set down his mug and leaned over the table slightly. “That is disturbing. If they’d grabbed Fujimiya—everything we did would have been—to use the word bluntly, ‘foiled’?” he hissed. 

“Get Schuldig to get inside his head and let’s find out,” Yuuji said. 

“He would have seen it before, when he checked on the boy’s memory after the explosion.”

“Not if he wasn’t looking and it was deliberately hiding,” he countered. “I think it’s always hiding.”

Brad sat back and stared at the room beyond. “Oh my god. This is insane. My mind just slides off it. It’s a joke, just a joke,” he put his hand to his chin, rubbing it. 

“I think I’m right. Believe me, I’ve tried to kill him. If anyone is going to be safe going in there, it’s him. If talent works inside that ‘event’ or whatever you want to call it.”

“Schuldig!” Brad yelled.


	13. 13

                Aya was sulking around the shop when Yuuji got back.  The school girls were hanging around outside, where it was safe.  Not a good sign.  “Omi said you were showing someone the photos,” he commented very neutrally.  He was tying irises to stakes for an arrangement; all that anger focused into very delicate work with the fragile stems and floral tape.

 

               “Yeah.  I left the camera with them so the lens could be analyzed along with the pictures.  So what about your sister, how is she?” Yuuji snagged his keys on the rack’s hook. 

 

                “I got the blood sample.  It was easy, just the way you said to do it,” Aya had his arrangement’s components laid out in order on the counter, but kept fiddling with them rather than actually working.  “I took it to a lab on the other side of Chiyoda.  They’re building some sort of watch tower there, at Yotsuya.  Looks like something out of an American prison movie.  The lab said they’ll have the results in a few weeks.  The surrounding companies are having to make up for work that would have been done by the university ones in Shinjuku.”

 

                “Long wait,” Yuuji said, walking over to put a hand over his.  “It may be nothing.   But at least this way, you’ll know.”

 

                “I just—never thought it might be something deliberate,” Aya didn’t look up. “That she wasn’t in safe care all this time.” 

 

                “I’m sorry I brought so much more distrust into your life,” Yuuji said softly.

 

                Now he looked up, searching Yuuji’s face.  Then he reached up to put his hand on the back of the blonds head and pulled him close to kiss him across the counter top.  

 

                There was a raucous cheer from outside, and Aya pulled back sharply, infuriated and embarrassed, to see the girls pressed up against the window glass, hands framing eyes to better see into the shop. 

 

                “Whoops,” Yuuji grinned.  “Another cat out of the bag.”

 

                “I’m going to kill you!”  Aya threatened him. 

 

                “Tender moment ruined,” Yuuji said.  “But seriously, they had to grow up sometime.  The fact that they all just spontaneously lost their virginity isn’t our problem.”

 

                “Just shut up!”

 

                “Hey, you were the one smooching me.” Yuuji held up his hands in mock surrender.  “But back to what I was going to say.  Omi told you what was in the photos?”

 

                Aya was glaring at the window.  The girls peeled away and after a brief consultation of frightened looks, ran for their lives.  The glare focused back on Yuuji.  “The towers,” he said.

 

                “Well,” Yuuji said carefully.  “The _theory_ is that if you go in at a certain time, you’ll be _in_ a certain time.  After the quake, after the fires, when these—things, these strange plants and animals—have been trying to get out from.   It all sounds like something Takatori Masafumi was messing with.”

 

                “Nothing we can’t handle,” Aya stated. 

 

                Of course a crazy guy with an unnatural talent for _not_ getting killed would say something like that.  Yuuji shook his head.  “Look, Aya, we need to talk.  Not in here.  Where are the kids?”

               

                “I don’t know, Sena called Omi and Omi took off on the delivery trike.  Ken’s off at some soccer game, it’s supposed to be his day off.”

 

                “Then to hell with it.  You’ve scared away all our customers anyway.  Lock up, let’s go.”

 

                Aya put the spiked flowers back in a vase with water in it.  “Where?”

               

                “Grab your coat,” Yuuji realized this was one of those things neatly and scientifically labeled ‘road to hell’.  “We’re going to be back late.”

 

                Aya frowned, but did as he was told, glancing back over his shoulder as he got his coat off the hook.  

 

                Yuuji pulled out his phone and tapped a contact.  “Yeah, yeah it’s me,” he drawled.  “Stop complaining.  We’re on our way,” he opened the drawer under the counter with his free hand and found something toward the back.  “Aya, _freeze!_ ” he called to him.

 

                And Aya just stood there looking at him curiously while Yuuji threw one of Omi’s emergency sedation darts at him. 

 

                *             *             *

 

                “You picked a wonderful time to be kidnapping people,” Schuldig said.  “Housekeeping is due in two hours.”

 

                Yuuji dumped Aya on the stripped mattress.  “It shouldn’t take more than an hour, should it?”

 

                Brad was not happy.  The sight of Fujimiya laying there completely helpless might as well have been tossing a trussed up mongoose to a pissed off cobra.  “You really are pushing your luck.”

 

                “ _I’m_ thinking Hello Kitty panties and Twitter,” Nagi grinned. 

 

                Brad looked at him. 

 

                “Taking the weapons cases down to the van,” Nagi did an about face and quickly left the room. 

 

                “You’re up to something, aren’t you?” Brad looked at Yuuji again. 

 

                “I’m extracting him,” Yuuji said.  “You’re the expert at jacking properties; I need one.  Temporary bolt hole, hovel by the tracks, shed under the bridge, I don’t care, as long as it’s not back there.  I’ve got a bad feeling about this whole spy thing.  Any luck with that?”

               

                “Actually yes.  It’s someone in the old man’s household,” Brad walked around the bed to look at him.  “You are aware that the head of the Takatori clan is Tsukiono’s grandfather.”

 

                “Some old coot living out his golden years in a rotting old wooden palace?” Yuuji looked down at Aya to avoid those eyes.  “Surrounded with faithful family retainers, bitter over his miserable sons ruining the family name.  Is he even capable of doing anything?”

 

                “And we all know the Emperor doesn’t run the show.  Naturally Esset has an agent inside that rat’s nest.”

               

                Schuldig sat down on the edge of the bed and brushed back the oddly auburn bangs to lay his hand on the bare forehead.  “He’s very groggy.  This should be a walk in the park.”

 

                “Make your pretty new toy happy and blow the place to hell,” Brad told Yuuji. “Call it an engagement gift.”

 

                Yuuji looked at him again finally.  “I’ll do it myself if the agent is guaranteed to be caught in the blast.”

 

                “Nine o’clock tonight, when everyone is home.  There’ll be six guards on duty who never leave his vicinity.”

               

                “If the grandfather’s been alive all this time, why didn’t _he_ pay the kid’s ransom?”

 

                “He was in Paris, enjoying his retirement. The only son he cared about was Reiji and he didn’t give a shit what the bastard did as long as he didn’t publically embarrass the family.  Tsukiono was the trophy wife’s kid, a woman Reiji’d stolen from his younger brother.  There was already an heir and a spare, why waste the money?”

 

                “Christ, you’d think people would be more careful about their breeding,” Yuuji said in disgust. 

               

                “But now there’s only the boy, and the old man’s got to take up the reins again, or acknowledge a 17 year old he basically threw away as head of the clan.  Our double crossing agent is going to be right there to do some puppetry of her own.  And if she gets hold of Tsukiono, it could become—more interesting in Tokyo than my investment is worth.  That is, if I let either of them live.”

 

                “She?” Yuuji said, very, very aware of how close Brad was.  “Quite a lot of women with plans lately, aren’t there?” Bad enough the timbre of his voice was seductively quiet and low to let Schuldig concentrate on his work, but he was close enough to accidentally brush against, should Yuuji chose to make that move.  _‘Am I being tempted?’_ he wondered.

 

                “It’s possible,” Brad said, and by the look in his eyes, he didn’t mean the agent. 

 

                Yuuji fought with himself.  “Let’s just—behave, now,” he said, backing up.  They had patches for nicotine addiction, but not this. 

 

                Schuldig’s blue eyes flashed angrily at them both, but he kept to his task. 

 

                Brad smiled that devastating smile, the one that said ‘you’ve been owned’.  Fujimiya was right there on the damned bed, but _he’d_ won. 

 

                Yuuji sighed.  “Can you get me some _real_ materiel to work with?” 

 

                “Not a problem,” Brad took a little leather bound note pad out of his suit jacket’s inside pocket and wrote down an address in it.  “Don’t worry, he’ll still be here, safe and sound, when you get back.”

 

                “No funny stuff?” Yuuji asked.

 

                Brad shook his head slowly, ruining the whole ‘innocent look’ thing with those gorgeous and naturally evil eyes.  He held up the fold of paper in two fingers before his lips. “Tell them ‘kurobashi’ for the pass word and it will go on my account.  Which means you’ll owe me, Sarazawa.”

 

                Yuuji wanted to kiss him.  Not doing so reminded him of that first depressing sign of getting the flu.  He took the paper and looked at Aya.  “I hope to hell he’s worth it,” he complained, then got out. 

 

                Brad watched Schuldig, listening for the front door to shut.  “Any chance you can fix that?” he asked. 

 

                “Forget it,” Schuldig said sourly.  “You promised.”

 

                “Yes, I did.  Remind me to shoot myself in the foot later.”

 

                “Twenty years from now, we’ll all sit in a bar and laugh about this,” Schuldig commented sarcastically, shoving his hair back out of his face in irritation.

               

                “Naturally, declining sex drive and other impediments associated with aging will calm things down a bit, but it still won’t be a happy laugh,” Brad grumbled.  “The problem is when I look at him, I can still see the future we _would_ have had together.  And then when I look at you— _well_ ,” he shut up.

 

                “When you look at me, _what?_ ” Schuldig was irritated.  “I’m trying to work here, if you won’t tell me, you miserable man, go away.”

 

                “At least mentally castrate the little bastard,” Brad left the bedroom. 

 

                *             *             *

 

                “So, you’ve really got it bad for Sarazawa.”

 

                Aya turned to see the flame-red haired man from Schwarz standing there in the darkness that surrounded them. 

 

                Schuldig looked at the ‘dream’ representation of Aya’s memories, projections or oddly filtered reflections on flat walls at various angles.  Yohji, Yuuji, whatever he called himself, was the theme; the one memory that kept repeating over and over more frequently was the last one.  Yuuji throwing the dart that drugged Aya into this helpless state, and it was attached to confusion and betrayal, and still, love.  The others were either more or less personal, some quite pornographic.   _Been there, done that,_ Schuldig thought smugly. “Your mind is so very flat, two dimensional.   Probably the drugs that little Takatori brat put in that dart, no?” Schuldig paced around him slowly. 

 

                “You’ve been here before,” Aya said warily, turning to keep an eye on him. 

 

                “In your head, yes,” Schuldig looked at him.  “I was taunting you about your little sister,” he grinned.  “But now we have something else to look at, don’t we?”

               

                Aya frowned.  “You don’t belong here.”

               

                “Relax, this is just a harmless examination.  Nothing like the little game we played before.  Your nice new lover is concerned about you.  This obsession with your sister troubles him.”

 

                “You leave my sister alone!” Aya yelled at him.

 

                “I thought that would get to you,” Schuldig stopped walking and stood still in front of him.  “I thought I’d be polite and just graze the surface, but if you force me to, I’ll rip your mind to shreds to get what I want.”

 

                The memories ceased, the blackness closing in around them.  Aya’s jaw was set. 

 

                “Yes, I can see you’ve grown up since we last had our little chat.”  Schuldig was checking all levels of his response, from mental to physical.  He began his circular pacing again, this time counter clockwise.  A simple trick, forcing the mind to keep its balance, disturbing the subject’s ability to focus and leaving cracks in the psyche.  The human mind without the body to provide spatial and gravitational data, was not really designed to multi-task.  Out of habit, Schuldig put his mental hands in his mental pockets, at home in his own mind as he was in reality.  That was _his_ problem.  He could become too ‘at home’ in someone else’s mind.  However, not this particular one. 

 

                Aya was in lock down.  Lights out, no one home.  Or pretending to not to be.  “Knock, knock, Lucky Boy,” Schuldig leered in his face, startling him.  “You want to save your sister by taking her into that inferno.  Sarazawa doesn’t want to let you do something stupid.  I’m here to give you a little physical,” he laughed. 

 

                To give him credit, the little freak didn’t step back.  He reached for a sword that wasn’t there.  He glanced down at his hip, then swiftly focused on Schuldig again, fear widening his eyes.

 

                “You can’t kill me in here.  What would happen?  A blood clot?  A tumor?  I could become a tumor in your brain, the little tendrils sinking into every part of it.  Believe me, you don’t want me in here permanently, now do you?  Besides, your body is too full of dope to move.  Who knows what the little Takatori had in that dart.”

 

                Purple eyes narrowed at the mention of that hated name.  His fisted hand dropped to his side.  He was trapped, what could he do but be angry and refuse to cooperate? 

 

                “I’ll tell you a little secret if you tell me one,” Schuldig said sweetly.  “The woman who held a gun to your head while you were on your knees.  That one?”

                               

                A flash of vivid memory pained Aya’s pretty face.  The emotion was raw and horrible, the red headed man like some demon feasting on the agony his Id was in; humiliation, fear, anger, those too bright eyes with their tightly focused pupils looked right through him. 

 

                “She was the first one to steal your sister from a hospital, wasn’t she?  She stole Yuuji, too.  Turned him into _Kudoh Yohji_ and added him to their collection of little dodgers from the law.  Stole his mind, stole his soul.  Kritiker likes to do that to people.  Take the already injured and rip the souls from them, steal their names, steal their lives.  But you and that soccer boy, you kept yours.  Because the name was a public humiliation.  Fujimiya, your father the thief, the embezzler.  Hidaka, the drug addict, the cheat.  I wonder who really set him up and why?  But that’s beside the point isn’t it?  And all you really care about is _you,_ ” he tapped Aya on the forehead suddenly, startling him. 

 

                Aya drew back a step, wary. 

 

                Schuldig watched for the sign Yuuji had described.  Something moving behind the intellect in the eyes.  Perhaps in here it would show its self more clearly, unless it was just imagination on Yuuji’s part.  All the while he monitored the heart rate, the breathing, the emotions, the little skittering mice of thoughts.  He could go deeper, fill out all the little corners with himself and sink in to really feel and think like Fujimiya, but that was the risk.  He didn’t trust this one not to hurt him, not to drag him in and drown him.  There wasn’t anyone he trusted that much.

 

                “She’s dead,” Aya said.  “Birman.  She’s dead.  But you know that.  Esset’s killing them all.” 

 

                Schuldig shook his head with a little pout of mockery.  “Yuuji killed her.  Practically the first thing he did when he started regaining his own personality.  Months ago, no?  He could have killed you all by now.  Instead, he wants to save _you_.  And if necessary to keep you, that dead weight of a little sister of yours, as well.” 

 

                  “Why?” Aya stated.  “If he’s Esset, been Esset all along, _why?_ ”

 

                Schuldig smiled not quite like a Cheshire cat, but the effect was just as creepily inhuman when he was in ‘headspace’.  “Because you’re what he’s stuck with, and you’re not exactly undesirable to someone with his requirements.”

 

                “Get out of my head!” Aya snarled at him.

               

                “Oh, now, don’t be so unfriendly,” Schuldig purred at him, suddenly switching to behind him with an arm around his shoulders.  “After all, we’re old acquaintances, you and I.  After all, I’m just in here for a little chat.”

 

                Aya was frozen, unable to move.  “Why are you doing this?  Just kill me and get it over with.  I don’t want to be Esset’s pawn, I’m sick of being anyone’s pawn!”

                “Are you kidding?” Schuldig said in his ear.  “ _We’re_ killing Esset.  Ungrateful little shits that we are, bred and born to serve power mad crazy old men who long outlived their purpose on this Earth, we, the ‘master race’, are not putting up with it anymore.  Our goals are the same.  Think about it, _‘Aya’_.  To slip into anonymity, to breath the air of freedom, to not have to answer to anyone.  Remember what it was like, that too short time between your parents and your masters when you were able to make your own decisions.  How sweet it was to kill for the money to support yourself and your sister, knowing you could get away with it.  Remember laying your hands on the hood of that pretty car of yours and saying, ‘I want this’, and being able to just buy it; without having to ask, without having to think about the consequences, the guilt.  Of course you were a criminal, but so were the people you killed.” He ran a finger down Aya’s cheek and tasted a tear.  “But why are you crying, Pretty?”

 

                Aya gritted his teeth and tried to fight free. 

 

                “Shhh, ssshhh, there, there,” Schuldig squeezed him a bit tighter, like a python.  “Tell me one thing and I’ll let you go back to sleep off the elephant tranquilizer,” he laughed a little.  “Do you know what you are?” he hissed suddenly.

 

                Aya stopped struggling, stopped thinking, just stopped. 

 

                “ _Is it there in your pretty head_?” Schuldig ran the same finger down the younger man’s temple slowly, speaking very, very quietly.  “That you can stand there and face a bullet without trembling?  That even if Yuuji were to put that deadly wire around your neck, you wouldn’t be the slightest bit worried?  Are you afraid someone will find out?  That _you_ are not living for your sister, but _she_ is dying for you?  Like a little Dorian Gray, you’re afraid _she’s_ suffering for _your_ invincibility?” The shell was cracking, he could see it now, just a peek here and there, a view from the fretted seraglio windows of Aya’s mind.  “That you are a danger to everyone around you, because in the end, _they will be sacrificed for you_?”

 

                A black wave of something inexplicable crashed down on Schuldig, and he found himself thrown out of Aya’s mind; physically falling off the bed onto the floor, and scrambling backward to get away from it, terrified it was coming after him even out here.

 

                Brad caught him and pulled him to his feet.  “What the hell was that?” he demanded.

 

                Schuldig looked at him, eyes wide with confusion, his heart pounding in his chest.  He scrabbled at Brad’s shirt front with his hand and gapped, fighting waves of threatening unconsciousness, his eyes rolling up into his head.  Then found access to his own files again, and drew a deep breath, remembering he had to breath, how to balance, the weight of his body secure against Brad’s.  He looked into amber eyes shadowed by disturbed black fringe and swallowed hard, his mouth dry as bone.  “I think I found the demon,” he rasped.  

 


	14. 14

 

                “Come on, Aya, time to wake up,” Yuuji was patting him rather sharply on the cheek.  “Wakey wakey!”

 

                Aya groaned and flailed a bit.  “Where are we?”

 

              “Never mind that, let’s just get out before the maid service comes in to verify the suite has been properly vacated.”

 

                “What did you do to me!” Aya complained. 

 

                “Omi’s darts are pretty potent,” Yuuji hauled him up to a sitting position and smacked him some more.  “Come on, breath.  Here, drink water.”  He picked up a glass and pressed it to Aya’s lips. 

 

                He guzzled down the entire glass, the dope having made him dehydrated.  “I’m going to kill you!”

 

                “Lovely.  You’re almost yourself again.  Want more?”

 

                Aya nodded. 

 

                Yuuji let him fall back to half lay on the bed.  He ran some more water into the glass in the bathroom, then took it back.  Again he had to prop him up and hold it for him. “Careful,” he warned when Aya choked on it.  He helped him finish it and set the glass aside.  “Come on, let’s go,” he tugged on Aya’s upper arm.

 

                Aya tried to stand up.  It was laughable.  Yuuji managed to refrain from laughing.  Whatever the hell Omi had put in those darts, he never wanted to be hit with one.  Although, the potential for that had probably gone up geometrically.  He pulled Aya’s arm around his shoulders and slung his other arm around Aya’s chest.  “Come on, Gorgeous, one foot in front of the other.”

 

                “You hit me with an Omi’s dart!” Aya accused rather incoherently.

 

                “Yes, I did,” Yuuji agreed.  They were almost to the front door.

 

                “Why’d you do that!” Aya slurred.

 

                “Because it seemed like a good idea at the time,” Yuuji hefted him up against his hip more securely and got him out the door, managed to lock and shut it and get them to the elevator just as the maid and her clean up cart were getting out.  “Drugged and kidnapped,” he explained to her startled look.  “Damn Yakuza.  Lucky his parents had the money.” 

 

                She grabbed her cart and fled down the hall way. 

 

                “You’re the one who drugged and kidnapped me!” Aya protested as the elevator door shut.

               

                “Rule two of being Me,” Yuuji said.  “Always tell the most truth you can.”

 

                Aya squint glared at him.  “S’Rule one?”

 

                “Lie like hell,” Yuuji pressed the button for the underground garage level.

 

                “Where are my feet?” Aya asked, trying to turn around.  “We got go back, get them…”

 

                “What the fucking hell did Omi put in those things?” Yuuji complained, forcing him back on track.  “Aya, pull yourself together, or I’m going to take you to a hospital and have you pumped out or something!”

 

                “No hospital!” Aya protested. 

 

                The elevator finished its descent and the doors finally opened.  Yuuji half hauled, half carried him to the Seven, opened up the passenger side, and dumped him in. He immediately fell over.  Yuuji stuffed his legs into the car and shut the door, then went around to the other side. He had to shove Aya into a sitting position and put the seat belt on him.  At least the straps would hold him upright.

 

                “Where going?” Aya asked as the engine started up.

 

                Yuuji thought about that a moment, then grinned.  “Love hotel,” he said, putting the car in gear.

 

                “The _hell?_ ” Aya stated. 

 

                “Ah, come on,” Yuuji glanced at him, still grinning wickedly, as he stopped for the parking garage’s barrier to rise.  “You’re drugged up, and pretty much useless for who knows how much longer.  Can you think of a better way to pass time while it wears off?”

 

                Aya pondered this.  “Gonna be sick,” he stated.

 

                Yuuji slapped on the brakes, not caring if anyone was behind him (there wasn’t, thankfully) and hopped out to run around and open the door, unhooking the seat belt and grabbing him by the back of his shirt, held him out of the car and aimed away from his boots.

 

                Most of the water Aya’d drank came back up, but nothing else of interest, thankfully. 

 

                Some gaijin driving in on the other side gave them a dirty look as he swiped his key card in the machine. 

 

                Yuuji checked to make sure Aya was still breathing okay and shoved him back into the seat and strapped him in.  “All better?”

 

                “Little,” Aya admitted, then let out a rattling belch. 

 

                “Charming,” Yuuji strode around to get back in on the driver’s side, shut the door and put the car back in drive.  “Dinner, _then_ the love hotel.”

 

                 “Just don’t buy me any damned flowers!” Aya ordered, then passed out again.

 

                Yuuji shook his head.  “You take all the romance out of things.”

 

                *             *             *

               

                Brad tapped the side of Schuldig’s foot and set a cup of coffee down on the new living room’s coffee table.  “Lift ‘em,” he ordered.

 

                Schuldig picked up the ice pack to look at him in annoyance, then raised his knees, drawing up his still sock covered feet, making room for Brad to sit on the end of the sofa.  “Is that mine?” 

 

                “It’s hot, it can wait,” Brad grabbed his ankles and pulled them back across his lap.  He took the left foot in his hands and started to massage all the little joints in the pad behind Schuldig’s toes. 

 

                “Gott, I hate you,” Schuldig groaned, putting the ice pack back on his forehead and eyes. 

 

                Brad laughed softly.  “Really?  I thought your undying love was a done deal when you saw the dishwashing machine.”

 

                “And how long are we here for?” 

 

                “Long enough,” Brad said, now doing excruciatingly tactile things to his right foot.

 

                “Mmmm, stop it, I’m going to cum,” Schuldig complained.

 

                “Liar.  How’s your head?”

 

                “Aching.  Both of them.  You want to kiss and make better?”

               

                “If I could, I would.  You’d think the codeine would work.”

 

                “Does it ever?” Schuldig sighed under his ice pack. 

 

                “No, but you’d _think_ it would work.” 

 

                “You made me have this head ache, stop messing with my feet and be a man about it.”

 

                “If you insist.  But your coffee will get cold.”

 

                Schuldig pulled his foot free, and grabbing the icepack off his head, sat up and picked up his coffee to stand up, wavering a little.  “I’ll take it with me.  And my ice pack.  You can do all the work.” He padded off to the bedroom designated as theirs.

 

                *             *             *

 

                 “It just keeps piling up.  You said we would be free, and here we are, all concerned about all this.  Why can’t we just ignore it, not our problem?” Schuldig asked an hour later.

 

                "I've gotten far too curious about what's happened," Brad admitted reluctantly. “This definitely isn’t the way I planned things to go.”

 

                "I'm not sure I believe _any_ of it," Schuldig's head still ached, but the rest of him was fairly happy.  It didn't hurt that Brad was currently rubbing the backs of his thighs in long caressing strokes.  “But there it is, the simplest solution everyone rants about. Fujimiya is the perfect one, the Three were wrong, and there you are.”

               

                “And the Three are dead.  But I have this awful _feeling_ , not a premonition, that it’s going to bite us on the ass just for the hell of it,” he patted Schuldig’s butt, then gave it a friendly little kiss, “if we don’t mitigate the situation.”

 

                The red head turned over and sat up.  He grabbed his coffee mug off the bedside stand, and finished off the last of it, which by now was very cold.  His eyes narrowed at Brad, who just smirked at him, then pretended the cold brew wasn’t a problem. 

 

                It became less of a problem when Brad moved to kneel between his thighs and took the mug and set it aside.  “Let’s try one more time,” he kissed him on the mouth, “to get rid of that headache.”

 

                Schuldig straddled his thighs and put his arms around his neck as hands grasped his behind and pulled him closer.  “Are you trying to distract me from this problem?”

 

                “Mmmm, maybe,” Brad kissed him on the tip of his nose, and looked into his eyes. 

 

                Schuldig moved a hand to poke him in the muscular chest with three fingers.  “You have to deal with it sometime if you’re going to insist on being the one in charge around here.”

               

                “I thought you were in favor of it just going away.”

 

                “I am, but that doesn’t mean I can’t shoot it in the back to encourage it.”

 

                “But you’re such a lousy shot,” Brad smiled, taking his hand and pulling it up to his lips. 

 

                “Liar,” Schuldig said.  “But what if someone else finds out about this?  It’s open season on Sarazawa.  Sooner or later, someone will figure out he’s hiding behind Fujimiya’s talent.”

 

                Brad frowned.  “Mercenary bastard that he is, I have no doubt that’s the main attraction.”

 

                “Ah, now, here I am, and you’re still jealous?” Schuldig gave him a little slap on the cheek. 

 

                Amber eyes sparked.  “I’ll be jealous and angry for as long as I damned well like.  But here you are, and so much more worth it,” he bit him on the neck and grappled him closer, forcing him to rise into a better position to enter him.

 

                Schuldig pretty much ran out of complaints at that point. 

               

                *             *             *

 

                With the mess Aya was in, Yuuji had mercy and paid for a decent hotel room.  Besides, he had work to do that the décor in a love motel wasn’t exactly conducive to. 

 

                Aya came out of the bathroom wrapped in the courtesy robe.  “What are you _doing?_ ” he asked in shock.  Food and a long shower, and possibly the drug finally wearing off had brought him back to his normal almost human mind set, if you could call someone with the personality of an angry ferret human. 

 

                Yuuji had the makings of a small cache of bombs spread across the bed, next to some satellite print outs.  “I know where the double agent is working from.” 

 

                “No, I mean _this!”_ Aya indicated the mess on the bed. 

 

                Yuuji looked up at him. “Oh, you mean—?” he smiled.

 

                Aya scowled, arms crossed. 

 

                “Patience is a virtue, sex fiend,” he went back to fixing timers to weights of explosive.  He scribbled a number on a roll of washi, then tore off that bit and tabbed a bomb with it.  He marked the number on a layout of some building that had been expanded, reduced to lines and printed tiled and taped together.

 

                Aya came closer to look over his shoulder.  “And why is _this_ more important that explaining to me why you _shot me_ with one of Omi’s damned darts and had me tortured by that asshole from Schwarz?” he smacked Yuuji across the back of the head with an open palm. 

 

                “Oh, but you looked so cute when I rescued you from their evil clutches,” Yuuji half turned to smile up at him. 

 

                “Not funny!” 

 

                “Depends on your point of view,” Yuuji set the pen and print out down and grabbed him by the hips.  “Would you have come along willingly?”

               

                “If you’d explained _why,_ I _might_ have!”

               

                Yuuji shook his head.  “Okay.  Aya, I want you to have that horrible red headed telepath from Schwarz who’s tried to kill us both a couple of times go through your brain to find out if something I suspect is true is true; is that alright with you?”

 

                Aya glared.  “That _man_ , _he_ is your old _school friend_?” he demanded.

 

                Yuuji killed a few moments tidying up the way the robe was folded across Aya’s lean body and how the belt was tied.  Then he took a deep breath, and said. “Aya, pay close attention to what I’m about to say, and no screaming and no going off like a nut job.  Just listen to me.”

 

                “The guy who lies,” Aya stated viciously. 

 

                “Setting that aside,” Yuuji said, taking him by the hips again and meeting his glare with serious eyes.  “You’re what we call ‘talent’.  And I don’t mean the kind that can pole dance, either.  We suspect you’re a supernatural talent.”

 

                “What the fuck!” Aya exploded, smacking Yuuji’s hands away and stepping back. 

 

                “This is exactly why I left your sword in the trunk,” Yuuji stood up to try and use a little height advantage to remind him who was boss here.  “You always go off like a rocket before you even assess the situation’s danger to _you._ Yes, I brought your sword with me.  That thing you use to splatter people all over the place with. I brought it with me to give to you when you recovered.  Hell, I dragged that thing out of the ocean with you.  Think about _that_ before you go trying to kill me just because you’re angry with me.”

 

                “That makes no fucking sense!” Aya whined angrily in increasing confusion.  “ _Did you_ kill Birman!”

 

                “Ssshhh,” Yuuji warned.  “Yes.  Not a very bright move on my part, but I was out of my mind at the time.  I could have exposed myself to a hell of a lot more trouble than I got.  But _listen_ to me.  I’m trying to explain.”

 

                Aya’s eyes were wet but he crossed his arms again and stood there sulking. 

 

                “Let’s start at the beginning,” Yuuji said in as normal and natural a tone as possible, to keep him in neutral.  “How much of your childhood did you spend in hospital or maybe being bullied for your hair and eyes?”

 

                Aya frowned.  “I was always healthy, and the bullying was never that bad.  What are you getting at?”

 

                “What happened to the bullies?” Yuuji persisted.

 

                Aya shrugged.  “I didn’t care enough to notice.  It usually stopped right away, I didn’t pay them any attention.”

 

                “Any of them have accidents?  Get hit by cars?” _{run through with a big damned sword maybe?}_

 

                Aya’s frown faded a little from anger to puzzled. 

 

                “Anything big you can remember happening to anyone around you?” Yuuji asked. 

 

                “One of the kids in my class in middle school fell under the train one morning,” Aya said, thinking back.  “Some of the others _said_ he’d been planning to push me under and tripped and went under himself.  I don’t know why, but supposedly, he really hated me. I didn’t even remember who he was.”

 

                “Basically, he was trying to kill you.  And like a normal person, you just didn’t want to believe that was why he really fell under the train,” Yuuji said.  “Haven’t you noticed that all this time, the most you ever get on missions is a little bang, a little scratch, some bruises?”

 

                Aya took a shivering breath, hugging himself.  “Is that what you believe?  That my sister is suffering for all the bad I’ve done?” he whispered.

 

                “First of all, take everything that crazy red head says with a good dose of salt.  He’s a sadist.  And he was trying to bait your talent out of hiding.  I hear you knocked his ass across the room while you were unconscious.  That’s major with a talent level like his.”

 

                Aya waited, still.

 

                “Esset was going to sacrifice your sister because they determined that she was some kind of special case, that her body would bring something over into this world.  Hey, don’t look at me like that, I don’t believe any of it either, I’m not into that magic crap.  With me, it’s either science or bullshit, but that’s what _they_ believed.  That your sister was the perfect key to the doorway or something like that, I have no idea, not my level of need to know.”

 

                Aya was frowning full on again, then he said sullenly.  “But it’s really me, and something in me somehow diverted it to my sister?  Bullshit. I would never hurt my little sister!”

 

                “Who happened to be the closest person to you at the time of the explosion.  And Ken, this ex-super star soccer player who can foot a ball across a field of guys trying to nail him for all they’re worth and put that ball into a net, is a fucking klutz around you why?”

 

                “ ’Cause he’s a homophobic pervert,” Aya grumbled.

 

                “Because every time he stumbles and falls and drops things, they were headed your way.  I saw that the other day.  That stack of twenty-four liter clay pots he was lugging could have broke your foot if he’d bumped into you when you came into the shop in such a hurry.  Instead he trips on nothing and they go everywhere but on you.  You would have smacked right into him at the rate you were going.”

               

                Aya drew a shaky breath.  “So?”

 

                “So you’re so used to it, you don’t even notice, do you!  The only time you get hurt is when there are too many things coming at you at once and one of the lesser evils gets through.  The worst you’ve ever gotten is a muscle pierced by a bullet, and that was when Schuldig was controlling Sakura’s mind to shoot you!  Believe me, this isn’t a guy you can normally mess with when it comes to mind control.”

 

                “If you’re so big on _him_ then why are you here?” Aya snapped.

 

                “Will you tie a damn knot in your penis?” Yuuji said in exasperation.  “Use your brain, Aya, not the lizard in your pants.  Your sister got hurt bad, but would she have _stayed_ hurt?  Your sister has an incredible metabolism.  Esset classified her as ‘physically perfect’.   You’re waiting on the blood test.  For all we know, if she’d been left alone under normal care, she might have snapped out of that concussion a few days later and recovered completely.  But Esset had her flagged by then.  They must have found something the first day she was in the ICU.  But they _didn’t_ find _you_.  And all the time Weiss was on Schwarz’s tail, making a mess of everything, the Elders still declined to _even bother_ with Weiss.  Not like them, believe me.  We should have all been swatted like flies.  And Crawford likes to kill people when he’s just mildly irritated over the weather.  I needed to have Schuldig get in your head to find out what this—part of you that I keep seeing is.”                

 

                Aya blinked. 

 

                “So yeah, maybe she is just in a functional coma because she’s been drugged silly for the past two plus years.  _Not because of anything you’re doing that’s getting her punished._ Schuldig pulled some shit, I can just guess, I know how he was trained.  But when you want information from someone stubborn, you have to put the pry bar in some pretty awful places.”

 

                Aya wiped his face and sniffled.  “I should kill you.”

 

                “I wish you wouldn’t,” Yuuji said sincerely.  “Because when I had my hands on you, I put one of these little suckers in your pocket, and I have the trigger in my hand,” he held up his fingers to show Aya a button switch with his thumb on it. 

 

                Aya froze, then felt the robe's pockets frantically.

 

                Yuuji grinned and showed him the wires dangling down the back of his hand.

 

                “ _You lying son of a bitch!_ ” Aya snarled and advanced on him.

 

                Yuuji kept both hands up defensively, side stepping.  “Aya, Aya, not on the bed—the bombs!”

 

                His ‘pride’ got a little bruised but the room had a nice layered carpet.  It took a bit of doing, but he finally managed to get Aya in a head lock and kissed him. 

 

                Aya glared down at him when he let him go and Yuuji saw that strange black shimmer in his pupils flash, then blink out again, leaving only the usual ‘impending death ray’.  Somehow he had the feeling he was labeled ‘marginally irritating, mostly harmless’ in someone’s little black data-pad. 

 

                “Let’s get one thing straight,” Aya growled. 

 

                Yuuji tugged a long lock of burgundy, “What’s that, Gorgeous?”

 

                “No more shit all over the bed unless you _like_ carpet burns.”

 

                “On one condition,” Yuuji squirmed and dug under his own right buttock to feel around. 

 

                “What?” Aya demanded.

 

                “Damn,” Yuuji pulled out his phone and looked at the cracked screen.  “I thought so.  You pay me for every phone you break.”

 

                “I _told you_ to stop keeping it in your back pocket!” 

 

 


	15. 15

                Yuuji could have strangled him.   Aya threw as much into his selfish pleasure as he threw into using that sword, and demanded as much back.  Oh, but he looked so cute when he’d finally got it out of his system. 

 

                The problem was they were now an hour late for the plan, and he had to re-pre-set every last bomb.  And while he’d had to work under tough conditions before _{dissipated, hung over and just plain ready to puke toe nails, thank you, Dr. Koreshigi}_ , being a little physically over exerted was not actually going to be _that much_ of a problem on this job. Unless he really fucked up. 

 

                “Blowing things up is over kill, don’t you think?  Why not just go in and slit all their throats?” Aya said, laying across the bed on his stomach with his feet in the air, watching him.  Sometimes he actually looked his nineteen years.  But at least he had his pants back on.  The world was a safer place.

 

                “Slitting their throats just makes a mess, and you should know.  Seriously, Aya, Countess Báthory and you could compare notes.  Also, slitting throats is more personal, and the police know that.  They start profiling individuals and checking names; where blowing things up is more like ‘oh my god, terrorists’, which implies foreign organizations, overwhelming odds, scary shit.  Explosives fuck things up big time for forensics because it doesn’t leave much to find, let alone eliminate; especially for Japanese police who live in pretty tame little procedural ruts.  After all, we live in a country where 90% of the time, a stern announcement has criminals turning themselves in and apologizing profusely,” he put the last re-calibrated bomb in the gym bag.  You had to love 24 hour gyms, it was always an excuse to be carrying something suspicious around at odd hours. 

 

                Aya pursed his lips, then asked the question brewing in his mind.  “Who are you doing this for?  Esset?  Omi?  Or yourself?”

 

                Yuuji smiled wryly, checking the mansion layout plans again, though he had them memorized by now.  “Don’t you think I might be doing it for you?”

 

                Aya rolled over on his back and stretched his arms out to ease his shoulder muscles from having kept himself propped up for a bit too long.  “You tried to get rid of me.”

 

                “You damn near fucked up my cover,” Yuuji looked at him.  “And—I had some things to sort out.”

 

                Aya was looking at him upside down now, his head hanging over the edge of the bed.  “Then what’s the real answer, Liar-san?  


                Yuuji thought about it a moment as he got to his feet and started looking around the room for anything that might be accidentally left behind.  The trash from their take out meal and a few other things { _note to self, more lube packets,_ _and a new phone, damn it!_ } was neatly wrapped up in the plastic trash liner from the room, which he would take with them to dispose of somewhere along the route.  Everything was clean, nothing alarming like bits of wire and flakes of explosive.  As for hair and finger prints, there was no reason for anyone to look for such things in a hotel room, especially a moderately priced one with a high turn over.  He sat down on the bed and pulled Aya up into a sitting position to face him.  “The truth is a little of everything,” he said, taking him by the shoulder and leaning over to kiss him.  “They started this,”  he tugged a long lock of burgundy red hair.  “They stole nearly 3 years of my life.  Ruined it.” For a moment he felt a god awful pang of dismay.   _Ruined everything._ “They destroyed your life, and your sister’s—and look what they’ve done to their own flesh and blood.   And here comes Karma,” he poked Aya between the eyebrows.  “Ready to roll?”

 

                Aya leaned over to kiss him, lingering and soft.  “What ever trouble you’re leading me into, you’re much more interesting than the old Kudoh,” he said, looking into Yuuji’s eyes.  “I like you.”

 

                “I thought you were just madly in lust with me,” Yuuji said, getting to his feet as Aya did the same on the other side of the double bed. 

 

                “That too,” Aya said.  “Damn it, Yohji, this isn’t my mission coat!” he shook the khaki duffle coat at him.   “We have to go back to the shop!”

 

                “Nope,” Yuuji stated.  “You’re not going to be splattering things all over, so get over it.  And stop calling me ‘Yohji’, you’re only triggering the brain washing.  Keep that up and I might get an overwhelming urge to go girl hunting.” 

 

                “Die!” Aya swore at him. 

 

                *             *             *

 

                Aya nudged him with his elbow as they made for the front door of the house.  “This is too easy,” he barely whispered.

 

                Yuuji half shrugged.  “You just like to make a mess.”

 

                Aya gave him the ‘are you crazy' face.  —boom— he mouthed and gestured with his fingers from his palm. 

 

                Yuuji caught him by the elbow and hurried him down the driveway to step over a deceased guard.  “It’s a good thing they didn’t have dogs or something,” he whispered.  “I had to extricate a cat from under one of those huge antique European sofas once _after_ setting the timer off.  Not fun.  Little monster wanted to go down with the ship until he got a taste of my blood.”

 

                Aya looked at him. 

 

                “Scratched me a few times, then he was like ‘ooo, you taste good,” Yuuji could have kicked himself for slipping up with that clue.  “Vicious beast.  They probably didn’t feed him.” 

 

                “What did you do with him?”

 

                “Gave him to a pretty girl a few days later,” Yuuji said to tease him, though it was actually the truth this time.  “The thing was evidence.  It was never allowed out of the house, if they’d gone looking for it, suspicious.”  That and he couldn’t put up with the creature wanting to ride on his shoulder and make love to his head every night while he was trying to sleep.  _Rather like the situation he was in now,_ his conscious chided him. 

 

                They closed the front gate behind themselves and walked calmly down the street a few blocks to where the Seven was parked. 

 

                “I really need to get rid of this thing,” Yuuji said, getting in.  When Aya was seated on the passenger side, he handed him a number he had written down on a piece of paper.  “Call that when I say so,” he looked at his watch.  “Let it ring until someone answers.”

 

                Aya, puzzled, keyed in the number.  “Why?”

 

                “We want to be sure our primary target is where we left her,” Yuuji stated.  “ _Now_.”

 

                Aya hit dial.  A sleepy woman’s voice answered.  “Hello?  Who is this?  Hello?”

 

                Aya suddenly realized why Yohji had set him up.  The sound of the explosion came quite clearly over the little speaker.   

 

                When the tiles and bits of wood had lightened up in their raining down, Yuuji lowered his arms from over his head and neck and looked at him with a huge evil grin. 

 

                Aya scowled and took the back off his phone and pulled the chip out.  “Asshole,” he threw the phone into the street. 

 

                Yuuji ran over it.  “ _Aww_ , was that an Iphone?   I hope you had the insurance on it.” 

 

                *             *             *

 

                Nagi double checked the new kevlar vest’s fit on Tot to make sure there were no gaps at the arm holes.  He knew from experience when someone got a fatal torso hit wearing a vest, it inevitably went through a gaping armhole, or up under from some odd angle when someone was trying to get away. 

 

                _“It’s not cute!”_ Tot complained of the flat black fabric and velcro tabs.  “I want _my_ body armor.”

 

                “Which made you look like a cosplay magical girl,” Brad tried not to snap, really he did, but it still came out as harshly sarcastic. 

 

                “Tot,” Nagi shook her gently by the armholes of the vest to get her attention away from the flicker of fear on her face.  “We need to be a little more military, a little less conspicuous?” he reminded her. 

 

                /Schuldig, if you don’t tell me what _the hell_ is wrong with that girl, I will— _do something awful to you!_ / Brad mentally yelled at him in frustration. 

 

                And of course the telepath got that stubborn look on his face that meant ‘go for it’.  /It’s got to work itself out on its own.  I’ve told you before, it’s not something I can just fix without causing all kinds of trouble./

 

                /But there it is, and it’s causing a problem.  A problem that will shoot you through the ass cheeks and _leave scars_ if it _doesn’t_ get solved!/

 

                Schuldig opened his mouth to protest, then shut it.  /You are _not_ to tell Nagi, or ever discus this aloud, _do you understand_?  She is not to know that you know—that _any_ of us know.  This is very important, that she maintain her secret, that _she has_ sole control of her memory of it.  The horrible thing is, I almost want to take her to that crazy ass doctor.  I want to smash my brains on the wall every time I’m reminded of it./

 

                /So!  What is it!/ Brad demanded. 

 

                Nagi half turned to look at him curiously.  He was used to the loud silences between his two ‘guardians’ and ‘mentors’ ( _insert heavy sarcasm, he thought_ ) but Brad’s anger was practically palpable on his personal aura or whatever it was that he used to manifest his telekinesis.

 

                Schuldig refused to use any imagery, and put it across in as few short and blunt sentences as he could condense it into, as impersonal as possible, like old white chalk writing on a black slate board.

 

                Brad slapped his hand over his mouth, eyes widening.  /oh…jesus…/

 

                /Aspirin or Percocet?/ Schuldig inquired sweetly.  / _Don’t look at her!/_ he warned.  /It’s all over your face.  Don’t look, don’t speak, don’t do _anything_ , just leave the room.  If you give _any_ indication of knowing, she’ll go ballistic, and I for one, _will_ put her out of her misery rather than put up with that./

 

                Brad did an about face and got himself out of the room as instructed, for once taking sensible advice. 

 

                Nagi gave Schuldig a ‘what the fuck’ look. 

 

                “Tot,” Schuldig said.  “The word for today is ‘covert’.  We have to be inconspicuous and sneak around, so whatever that is in there won’t notice us until it’s too late for it to try to harm us,” he smiled and patted her on the head.  “You do a pretty good job with that umbrella.  Can you fight with a kali stick or sai?  Jei, would you be willing to spar with Tot?”

 

                “Will she fight back?” Jei asked seriously.   

 

                “Like a wild cat,” Schuldig assured him. 

 

                The irish lad nodded his head in thought.  “Might be fun.  For a change.”

 

                Schuldig rolled his eyes.  “We all know Brad cheats. 

 

                “Alright then.  Nagi, you be ref.”

 

                “Fine,” Nagi glared at Schuldig. 

 

                “Oh, I’m sorry, did I just ruin your happy happy fun time?” Schuldig cooed.  “And you were getting so good with the crayons,” he made a sad-clown face at him.

 

                “Bitch,” Nagi said under his breath.

 

                “I know I am, but what are you?” Schuldig taunted, knowing the infantile reverse psychology would just infuriate the kid more.  Then he went after Brad before he could be attacked with any reasonable excuse. 

 

 

                Brad was sitting in the arm chair in the bed room with his elbows on his knees, glasses hanging from one hand, and looking gravely disturbed.  Schuldig went and sat on the arm of the chair to put an arm across his shoulders. 

 

                “I’m sorry you’ve had to carry this,” Brad said quietly.  “I was wondering why you were going easy on her, even for Nagi’s sake.” 

 

                “Hey, telepaths have to be tough,” Schuldig shrugged it off.  Brad couldn’t see the grim look on his face, though.  “But _she_ lived it.”

 

                “If I had the ability, I’d dig Hirofumi up and slaughter him all over again,” Brad rubbed his forehead, then his eyes. 

 

                “Stop thinking about it,” Schuldig said softly, stroking his ink black hair back.  “Just let it go.  I guess in a way, I was waiting to tell you at the right moment.  So this is it.  She’s tried to put you in Masafumi’s rank in her thinking.   But she’s very PTSD and hyper defensive.  That bastard only picked her out of the garbage when his piece of shit brother tossed her.  We’ll never know who her real parents are.  She’s not talent, but what the hell, Nagi needs an anchor.”

 

                Brad sighed and put his glasses on.  He shook his head again.  “I just—every time I think I’ve seen it all, I find one more reason to fucking give up on the human race.”

 

                “Now you know how I feel,” Schuldig hissed. 

 

                Brad looked up at him.  “I _feel_ like the god damned Grinch,” he scowled.  “I don’t like _feeling_.”

 

                “Well, there is a certain resemblance,” Schuldig admitted.  “Perhaps you should eat more red meat.” 

 

                Brad half frowned, half smiled and patted the red head’s knee.  Then he sighed again.  “Well, I suppose I can be a little more considerate.  For Nagi’s sake,” he specified.

 

                “You start tucking her in at bedtime with a candy cane, I’ll break your jaw,” Schuldig warned. 

 

                *             *             *

 

                Nagi had the reports lined up.  Rumors, verified, possible half truths, and the information Schuldig had gleaned from the military brains.  Brad went through them carefully, thoroughly.  Some of it was so contradictory, but that was the problem.  With the time bubble or what ever it was the place was in, any of it could be true and untrue at any given moment.  He wouldn’t know until he was there, and that—gave him a sense of not very pleasant unease, he decided.  Certainly not fear. 

 

                His phone buzzed on the desk.  About time.  He picked it up.  “Hey.”

 

                One sleepy sounding familiar drawl met his ear.  “Hey yourself.  I thought I’d call my resident psychic and find out how my day was going to go before getting out of bed.”

 

                “It’s after noon; that should be enough to tell you how your day is going,” Brad said smoothly, eyes back on the reports.  “And technically, I’m not ‘resident’.  More ‘on-call’.  You absolutely flattened the Takatori base mansion last night.  Very pretty pictures on the news this morning.  ” 

 

                “Thank you, thank you; I owe it all to a misspent youth.”

 

                “Yours, or him?” Brad sniped.  “I’m looking at these medical reports you gave me the heads up on.  There haven’t been any healing talents ever recorded that can heal others.  Why is this guy suddenly showing up now, post apocalyptic disaster?”

 

                “Maybe he’s our ‘mage’,” Yuuji said in a way that a person only sounded when they were having a good stretch in bed.

 

                Brad fought off nostalgia.  The asshole was probably doing it on purpose.  While he _said_ he wanted to keep it platonic, he was too much of a creature of habit not to keep all those little hooks sunk in deep.  “Interesting theory.”

 

                “Well the problem is, until we get the blood tests back, Aya’s still hell bent on getting his sister to this guy.  And the labs are back logged because of the over load from Shinjuku being cut off.  There’s no reasoning with him.”

 

                “You’re letting him shower alone?” Brad said archly, clicking the page down on the file. 

 

                “Defensive reflex.  Still, if I’d really been smart, I’d have disabled the water heater.  I’m going to have to get some good old fashioned salt peter soon.”

 

                “You do realize the cold shower theory has been disproven.”

 

                “You and your dumb experiments; I caught the worst flu I’ve ever had.”

 

                “You’d already been exposed to it, stupid.  It takes a week to develop, you were sick the next day,” Brad realized he was slipping back into teen mode and put a full stop to it.  “If he wants’ to go in there that badly, bring him along.”  He was reading the section on carnivorous plants.  “He may come in very useful.” 


	16. 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven’t been able to read the light novels with Dr. Mephisto as the main character, but he is in the other Demon City Shinjuku centric novels published in English, and of course the movie anime. But I have read the all too short manga series and will just go with the set up in the manga, backed up by the character’s behaviors in the translated novels. The novels go from the initial devil quake, to years later with the eccentric recovery of the city. If you’re watching Kekkai Sensen, it’s sort of a rip off of Makai Toshi Shinjuku, smushed in with Men in Black, but set in New York. This is why earlier in this story, Ken refers to New York being horrific.

 

Chapter 16

 

“I don’t understand how you can blank her mind over Weiss, but you can’t—,” Nagi tossed his hand in the air, “the rest of her.” 

 

Tot sat quietly, hands in her lap, a blank look on her face.  She looked like a doll at a tea party, or a mannequin in a shop window. 

 

“Seriously?” Schuldig looked at him.  “If I fix _everything_ in that head of hers, do you _honestly_ think she’d have anything to do with you?”

 

Nagi looked about to explode as every possible horrible thing that could happen to cause him to be rejected filtered through his mind on its own, courtesy of his teen age insecurity. From her being taller than him, to his nose which had a bit of a stronger bridge than normal, due to it having been broken when he was very young, to his arm, also a little crooked from being broken in four places.  And his voice, which had just lately gotten to the point of cracking at times when he didn’t strictly control it.  Gods, his _voice._   What if she hated his voice?  He felt his throat, was he growing _at all_? Had all that coffee stunted his growth!  What if _this_ was _it?!_  

 

Schuldig waited.  Schuldig had a very sarcastic way of waiting.  Even without telepathy, he pretty much managed to express everything when he wanted to with that mobile face.  There might as well have been a sign over him, stating with an arrow, “This is Schuldig, waiting as sarcastically as possible”.  And it would be in sarcastic font. 

 

Brad laid a hand the boy’s shoulder and gave it a light squeeze.  “Nagi, just enjoy life, will you?” he let his hand drop to walk over to open the door just as there was a knock at it. 

 

Schuldig quickly caught Nagi by both cheeks, making him make fish lips. “Don’t worry, chibi-Nagi-kins, we’ll _always_ love you _just the way you are!_ Flaws and all! _”_ he made kissy lips at the boy, and let him go.

 

“I’m going to kill you now,” Nagi stated very calmly, his voice not cracking at all.

 

“Unh-unh, united front before company,” Schuldig warned.  He pointed down.  “You totally dropped your cool.”

 

Nagi could have screamed, his fists clenched, along with his teeth. 

 

Schuldig snapped his fingers in front of Tot’s nose as he walked past her.  She blinked and tilted her head, not at all aware of what had happened to her.  “Nagi-kun, you look so funny!” she giggled.  “Why are you mad again?”

 

Brad stepped aside to let Yuuji come in, followed by closely by a major awkward moment, and Fujimiya.

 

Schuldig noted that it was a good thing Fujimiya was behind Yuuji so he didn’t see that look cross his face before his eyes went anywhere but at Brad. 

 

Schuldig spread his talent over the situation, watching each mind of the three for any signs of needing to protect Brad.  There was definitely potential for a death match here.  /Fujimiya thinks _I’m_ the ex boyfriend?/ he was surprised. 

 

/?/ was Brad’s only response.  “Leave the blade at the door, Fujimiya.  Unlike your little flower shop, there are no Takatori here to skewer.”

 

Aya glared at Yuuji, then sullenly unbuckled his sword belt and leaned it beside the front door in the genkan. 

 

/And the knives in his boots./ Schuldig reported.

 

“The knives in your boots as well,” Brad stated dryly.   

 

 “Oh, _come on,_ ” Yuuji said.  “Fujimiya, Crawford; Crawford, Fujimiya; and you know Schuldig a little too well.  Naoe, Farfarello, and Tot, who has been _decommissioned_ from Schrient,” he tilted his head at Schuldig to indicate just how.  “Under the circumstances, Fujimiya has agreed to behave like a sane human being _._   Provided we take his sister into Shinjuku with us, to find this Doctor Mephisto,” he told Brad.

 

“Well.  I suppose we should all sit down and discus this like professional adults.  Coffee; tea?  Booze?” Brad gave Yuuji an arch look.

 

“Don’t tempt me,” Yuuji said dryly.  “Coffee for me.  This guy drinks green tea like a fish.” 

 

Fujimiya was furious for that, too. 

 

“Schuldig,” Brad glanced at him and turned his back on Fujimiya to walk into the living room.  

 

He sullenly went into the kitchen to ‘be mother’.  How the hell was he supposed to multitask like this?  Of course, there was always the possibility that Brad had seen nothing unusual happening and had simply once again neglected to inform _him._

 

It certainly looked like a fairly casual business meeting when he carried out the tray and set it down on the coffee table.  Tot was completely at ease with the man who had killed her ‘big sister’, and the one whom she had last been seen going at Masafumi’s vine/tentacles with that huge sword.  She hadn’t been in the room when Farfarello had broken the tank and done the creep in once and for all.  She was more happy to be sitting there having her coffee in the very fancy cup and saucer set bought specially for her at some brand name Lolita shop, and excited about the possibility of an adventure right out of a horror movie. 

 

Fujimiya was mentally dismantling _him._ Schuldig was very tempted to inform him of his erroneous assumption.  Or possibly insert a sneaking suspicion that it was Jei.  That would be too damned much fun for one day.  Hmm, there was just enough room on the sofa next to Yuuji if he squished in.  But no, Brad had left him the seat beside him on the sofa open, and making Yuuji squirm was far more important that teasing Fujimiya.  And Yuuji _was_ squirming.  Oh, the _angst_ behind that jaded dusting of a smile! 

 

Brad was outlining the information that Nagi had collected.  “We can’t find a damned thing indicating who this Mephisto is, or where he came from before the earthquake,” he picked up his coffee and sipped it, setting it down again as Schuldig sat down beside him. “You’ll be taking your sister into a very dangerous situation.  Wouldn’t it be better to remove her to a private facility out of Kritiker’s reach and just have some patience to see if any medication she’s been given wears off?”

 

“The government is cutting off Shinjuku,” Fujimiya said in that surprisingly deep voice of his.  “It would be even more difficult to get a girl on a gurney through military check points on a forbidden zone, than to just slip in now.  She’s been in a coma for so long, if she doesn’t recover from just being detoxed, if this man can truly work miracles...”  he fell silent, looking at the mug of tea in his hands. 

 

Yuuji looked exasperated.  “She’s his sister,” he told Brad.  “And he’s in a panic.  What’s one unconscious girl for an extra two experienced soldiers?”

 

“The fact that we’ve already got one half-unconscious—,”

 

Brad had his hand over Schuldig’s mouth, and was counting to ten patiently in his head. 

 

Schuldig debated biting him, then shut up. 

 

Yuuji laughed softly, then covered it with a throat clearing and grabbed his coffee and sipped it.  Aya looked at him curiously. 

 

“The fact that you want a little more care in her transport _this_ time,”  Brad looked at Fujimiya, who remained in his default sullen mode.   “Walking in there with a gurney? It might perhaps be more sensible to find this doctor and bring him to your sister.”

 

“Possible?” Yuuji asked, sitting back with one arm across the sofa, putting his ankle on his thigh and resting his cup behind it. 

 

“I’ve no idea,” Brad admitted.  “Nothing in there is visible to me or to Schuldig,” he looked at Aya.  “Even Nagi’s telekinesis can’t move the smallest thing on the other side of the crevasse.  From everything we’ve gathered,  I’m certain that once we are inside, paranormal talents _will_ work.  After all, if this doctor is performing surgery with paranormal talent, then it’s possible that the barrier is only a temporal bubble or something.  It really is beyond anything on record anywhere that I’ve been able to find out, even through Esset.”

 

“I’ve found some alternatives to using a gurney that will make this much easier,” Nagi slid a set of print outs across the table with the fingertips of both hands.  “These are various specialized wheel chairs.”

 

Aya set his untried tea down and hesitantly picked up the print outs and looked through them.  “These are too expensive,” he vetoed.

 

“And _where_ were you going to get the gurney?” Brad asked. 

 

Yuuji looked at Aya skeptically.   He took the papers from  him and sorted through them.  “This one,” he put the image down and the other next to it.  “Power assisted on touch for the attendant, a lot less work and longer battery use.  The semi-recline position will make it easier to keep her in it, too,” he tapped the picture.  “This extra piece for holding IV bags will come in handy.” 

 

“How do you know this stuff?” Aya demanded quietly of him. 

 

“Undercover as a male nurse,” Brad said, smiling at the reminder. 

 

“Oh, yeah,” Yuuji said, drawing out the words.  “ _That_ was a job,” he pushed his hair back with one hand and picked up his mug again. 

 

Schuldig watched the clue bus run Fujimiya over with a grin.  His face went blank as he stared at Brad, who was smiling at Yuuji in a way that could only be called ‘familiar’ over his coffee cup.  Purple eyes went back to Yuuji who was half smiling back at Crawford.  Bingo, Schuldig thought.  _Now_ , he gets it. /You are so dead,/ he informed Brad.

 

/Oh, let him try,/ Brad’s thought came back at him, warmly amused. 

 

/ _Who_ should behave here?/

 

“Tot has some training in basic nursing,” Nagi continued.  “She’s willing to be responsible for your sister’s transport and guarding her.”

 

“That would be good,” Yuuji said quickly, over Aya’s instantaneous outrage.  “Don’t you think so?” he looked at the overgrown brat.  “From these reports, you’d want both hands free for the sword.”

 

Aya got the warning and subsided, though his mouth twitched a bit in a frown.  Pussy whipped, Schuldig thought.   

 

“We have no idea of what state the city will be in; this is the largest problem,” Brad said.  “It appears to be wavering in time, from the actual event, to an amount of recovery well in the future.  The stories are still piling up on the internet chatter boards.  Schuldig has tracked down and verified a broad sample of these eyewitnesses who firmly believe what they saw and experienced.  Nagi has compiled a list of entry points and key factors from those who either survived and escaped the event itself, or have gone in to try and find family and managed to get out.  One thing we have on our side.  It seems easier for those who go in quietly, than for larger attempts like the military and helicopters.  Frankly, I find it fascinating, the way this proves out theories of physics, but the magical element has me suspicious.”

 

Schuldig was only skimming Aya’s thoughts, not willing to draw attention to himself again from that darker side, but it was easy enough to pick up things from his un-shuttered mind.  The poor excitable thing was having fits behind that pretty mask of a face.  Keeping him alive was definitely going to be a _lot_ more fun than just killing him.

 

                *             *             *

 

Madam Tonveau Nuvenberg stirred the old style cast iron pot again and peered into it as the ripples settled.  Nope, it was still there.  She turned to waddle her very round body over and squint at the rough wooden shelves of various bottles; some repurposed old pressed glass medicines and elixir containers, some hand blown, some modern canning jars, some from the chemistry supply shops; all in various stages of dusty and suspect content.  A clawed hand snatched down a brown glass bottle with a cork in it, “Eye of newt, that will clear it up,” she tipped a few viscous drops into the mixture and gave it another vigorous stir. She stopped stirring and waited, her bulbous little nose inches from the surface of the mirror black mess in the soup kettle on the burner.  Others of various sizes, from normal kitchen use up to up to able to boil a human, stood on the table and around the brick floored room. 

 

“Not _fish dumplings_ again,” Doll put the basket of groceries on the wooden work table. 

 

Tonveau laughed evilly.  “Still bitter over that little joke?”

 

“Just fortunate I don’t have to eat,” the little blond ringleted creature said, her big bright china-blue glass eyes a little too old for her porcelain-pretty face.  A synthesis of magic and technology, Doll had both glass and brass for veins, and real blood ran through them, though whose or what’s, there was no telling now.  The recipe was lost. 

 

A huge black raven fluttered in through a high window and landed on the table to strut over to the pot and look in with a tilt of his nosy head.  “What now?” he asked, fully expecting trouble if the old lady was so happy. 

 

Tonveau swept an arm at him, and he flew back to avoid her strike.  “Off my table, you fiend.  I don’t need your filthy feathers in my brew!”

 

“I keep forgetting you’re the _evil_ sister,” Raven told her, and flew up to a rafter to walk back and forth along it, his bright black eyes watching. 

 

Tonveau glared into the pot again.  “Nope, it’s sticking.  This _is_ going to happen.  Doll, have a look.”

 

The faux five year old came and stood on a little Middle European-style wooden painted step stool to look into the pot.  “Oh,” she said, eyes wide.  “How strange.  They must be coming to see the—,”

 

“Don’t _mention_ that man’s name in this house!” Tonveau snarled.  “If we catch them first, there may be a pretty penny in this.”

 

Doll looked at her, lips slightly pursed.  “That’s not right.  If that girl is truly sick…”

 

“I’ll cure her of what ails her,” Tonveau declared.  “After all, I’m a witch, aren’t I?” 

 

Doll and the raven’s eyes met.  The look that passed between them was one of resigned oppression. 


	17. 17

It was strange to see ‘Yohji’ interact with these people.  He’d never been that interested in the mission plans for Weiss. His mind had always been off somewhere else, or he’d been hung over and just not caring.  Now he was not only actively discussing tactics, but bringing up different angles, problems that might come up.  The way he worked with them was way different from with Kritiker.  More involved, more dedicated to the team.  Aya started to feel a little bit isolated; odd man out in the group. 

 

They were talking about the reports now, and the different dangers people had witnessed; carnivorous plants, mutated beings that might have been human and were mostly animal.  The state of the city-scape.  Shadows that sucked the life out of people, plants that lured you into their grasp with hallucinatory chemicals or something.  All of it was just too insane, but they had to be ready for anything, that was clear. 

 

 “Except instead of a boyfriend with a broken bottle at your throat, she’s got a mouth full of fangs down there.  So basically, it’s Patpong on a Saturday night,” Schuldig was saying. 

 

“You’re terrible,” Yuuji chuckled. 

 

“I’m so innocent, I see that now.” Schuldig put the print out down with a disgusted wince.  “Let’s just shoot anything that moves,” he told Brad.  “In fact, let’s take a flame thrower.”

 

Brad shook his head.  “These are what interest me,” he tapped another thin stack of paper.  “The city is under repair, there is a police force, dangerous zones are fenced off and posted, some semblance of social structure returning,” he leaned over the now marked up and sectioned off map and compared the notes.  “This area here, when we can see the towers clearly, is our best chance of getting in at the right time.  The West Gate.  If we go in _there_ , we have a better chance of locating this doctor.”

 

“That means going right past the military,” Aya said quietly.  “And how are we to do that?  Shoot our way in?”

 

“You have to understand that this is not a problem,” Schuldig told him.  “Look at me.”

 

Aya looked at him, still angry at him despite the detente. 

 

The flame haired gaijin disappeared. 

 

Aya gaped in shock.

 

Schuldig re-appeared.  “We will cruise right past them.  I can blank out their minds to us as easily as I just did yours.  I don’t know how close we will get to the other side before they see us, though, if they will at all.” 

 

“About that bolt hole,” Yuuji said, looking at Crawford.

 

The black haired man got up to go over to a low table by the television and pick up a set of keys with a tag on them.  He tossed them to Yuuji, who plucked them out of the air.  “Setagaya, on the cusp of Shimokita.  Nothing fancy, and just a little haunted.  But you won’t be there long.”

 

“You just _had_ to put me in Hipster-ville, didn’t you?  I can’t even get my car through those damned streets.” 

 

“What do you mean, a little haunted?” Aya asked. 

 

“Oh, nothing serious, I’m sure,” Crawford said.  “The previous owners donated the property to the local Buddhist temple when the bubble burst and they moved over seas.  I got a deal on the rent.  And there is parking, fusspot.  A garage and a short drive.  Those stains on the garage floor are probably just transmission fluid,” he slipped his hands into his slacks pockets. 

 

“Cheapskate,” Yuuji grumbled.  “I suppose you know where the bodies are.”

 

Crawford tried to hide his smirk by pursing his lips, shaking his head.  “No, but the agent who stayed there last was—happy to be transferred.  You know these old houses, they develop a personality.  Look at it this way, no one from Weiss is going to look for you there, and all the trendy new restaurants and edgy shops are within walking distance, so you won’t suffer from depravation,” he aimed that at Yuuji.  “Oh, and it’s not furnished, you’ll have to take a futon and a few things.”

 

“Thanks a _lot_ ,” Yuuji slouched on the sofa and stretched out a leg to put the keys in his pocket.  “Tell me it doesn’t have a dry dirt toilet.”

 

“It’s a step up from a cardboard and blue tarp hut under the bridge,” Crawford said teasingly, “Which _was_ one of your suggestions.  And yes, it has mod-cons, it’s been refitted since the 90s.  Most likely where some of those odd noises are coming from.”

 

Aya looked at Yuuji as he sat up again, and saw that look on his face.  More so this time.  The way he looked at Crawford pretty much gave it all away.  He felt as if he were losing something he never really had a grasp on in the first place. 

 

                *             *             *

 

“Lucifer has nothing on you,” Schuldig commented when they were gone.  “They won’t sleep at all tonight.”

 

“I seriously doubt the house is haunted,” Brad said dismissively.  “You know how superstitious the Japanese can be.  The last owners probably had some latent talent for pre or post cognition.  And from what _you’ve_ told me, I doubt anything in that house could stand up to Fujimiya.”

 

“I could take a few sheets and scare the crap out of them,” Nagi offered. 

 

“Sarazawa would call you out on it the first moment something floated through the room,” Brad ruined his theory.  “Nice try, though.  The next time we need to subtly clear a building, you’re on for a poltergeist, though.”

 

Nagi smiled, pleased with the idea. 

 

“So, ‘ _feels’_ on this little excursion, now that it’s set in stone?” Schuldig asked Brad.

 

“Slightly improved, but still,” Brad said.  “I really don’t like walking into the unknown.”

 

“You’re so spoiled,” Schuldig teased, tugging him by the shirt front with one hand.  “Come down here with the rest of the human race and live dangerously.”

 

Brad caught him by the chin and tilted his head up a little, looking into his eyes.  “I’m thinking something a little different.”

 

Schuldig frowned, realizing something that had been brewing for days now.  “You’re joking.  This isn’t just to make Esset happy with a report, is it?”

 

“Why not?” Brad smiled.  “Where better?”

 

“Because we have no idea what’s in there, and it’s no time to be making any plans,” Schuldig informed him. 

 

“Spoken like a responsible grown-up.  I’m so proud of you,” Brad leaned in to kiss him. 

 

“Outta here,” Nagi stated, “Tot!” he called, “Let’s go to the park!  I’ll push you on the swings!”

 

“He’s afraid we’re going to have loud noisy sex,” Schuldig purred at Brad, his arms around his neck loosely. 

 

“Perceptive child,” Brad said, his fingers playing with the first button on Schuldig’s shirt. 

 

“ _Teenager_!” Nagi corrected, mildly angry. 

 

*             *             *

 

Yuuji didn’t like it, but Aya insisted on going back and getting his things, _and_ pointed out that if they just ‘disappeared’, it would cause them to be searched for.  When they walked in and found Izumi Sena sitting on the living room sofa with bandaging on his head and chest, Yuuji stopped short.  “Were the girls _that_ rough on the shop today?”

 

“Haha, funny,” Omi said flatly, having just come back into the room with a tumbler of iced barley tea and a bottle of pills.  “Where have you two been?  Both your phones are out of service again.”

 

“Love hotel,” Yuuji said. 

 

Aya turned bright pink and did a great job of not killing him then and there. 

 

“I found my mother,” Izumi said quietly.  “She’s in jail now.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Yuuji said, looking at him.  He walked over to sit down on the coffee table and put a hand on his knee to look into his eyes.  “Now you can go on with your life,” he said quietly, but firmly.  “Put this behind you.  Find your father’s family, and if they won’t take you in, find someone to work for who will.  Don’t stay with Kritiker.  Don’t let them make you kill for the rest of your life, Sena-kun.”

 

“Yohji—,” Omi said quietly. 

 

Yuuji closed his eyes for a moment, then came to a decision, and stood up to look at Omi.  Of course they hadn’t told the kid anything yet.  He was the heir, but they’d discounted him one too many damned times already to give a crap now.  “Aya,” he nodded toward the stair case. 

 

“What’s going on?” Omi asked very carefully.

 

“I’m telling Kritiker to go fuck themselves,” Yuuji informed him, standing up.  “Aya wants his stuff.  We’re walking away, and it’s as simple as that.  Don’t make it get complicated.”

 

“The way you’ve been acting—anyone would think you were the double agent all along,” Omi frowned.

 

Yuuji half smirked.  “The way I’ve been acting?  You mean like someone who has a sense of their own value?  Kritiker doesn’t like that, do they?  Not on our level.  ‘Trash, murderers, dogs’.  In any other company that would be grounds for a lawsuit.  Aya and I are leaving, that’s final.”  He couldn’t want a cigarette more than right now.  Probably that was a sign he was doing absolutely the right thing. 

 

                *             *             *

 

“Manx will have a bulletin out on us before nightfall,” Aya said. 

 

They’d taken his car for its smaller footprint, if not less eye catching expense.  Yohji had cleared out the Seven and patted it goodbye with little remorse.  He found it amusing that Aya had thrown half _his_ closet and drawers in a laundry bag for him, too.  He wasn’t sure he wanted to see which clothes the guy had picked.

 

“Not really too concerned,” Yuuji said, enjoying the afternoon cool through the window.  “They know we’ll have to get your sister and be waiting.  Until we go get her, they’ll probably just sit and wait for us.”

 

“That’s to be expected,” Aya stated grimly.  “If they harm her—.”

 

“Oh, but that would go against their entire existence, to bring justice to those who have no hope of it,”  Yuuji glanced at him.  “Don’t worry, Aya, shit’s going to happen no matter what.  The fun part is just starting it before someone else does.  Let’s get something to eat and find this place, then go shopping like a normal couple moving in together.”

 

“For how long?” Aya asked bluntly. 

 

Yuuji’s bullshit meter went up a notch into level orange.  “Hmm?” he noised.  Let the fight come to him, he wasn’t even meeting it half way.

 

“For how long are we going to be ‘together’?  Until you’re certain Kritiker is out of your hair?”

 

Yuuji put a hand over his lightly on the gear shift, “Not a comfortable conversation to have while you’re driving, but I suppose you won’t pull over.”

 

“Well, I’m sorry _you’re_ uncomfortable,” Aya spat out.  But he made no move to pull out of traffic.

 

“Just tell me what’s bothering you, without a lot of drama,” Yuuji said. 

 

“That person.  Why don’t you just go back to him,” Aya stated in an angry snarl.

 

“I tried,” Yuuji said.  “It didn’t work out.  Too much had changed in the years I was ‘dead’.  It hurts like hell, Aya, to see him with someone else he wouldn’t let go of.  He’s had almost three years to move on after hearing I was dead, and I didn’t,” he ran a finger along the line of the door’s window frame.   

 

“I’ve hated him from the moment I first saw him,” Aya said.  “To  know that you and he—that you’re his.  I saw how you look at him, Yohji, how he looks at you.  You’re _still_ his.”

 

“Just old friends,” Yuuji said softly, sadly.  “Don’t worry, Aya.  He’s practically symbiotic with that telepath now. Trust me, I’ve seen ‘those looks’, too; between him and Schuldig.  I’m not as valuable to him as a high level telepath, and that’s just the way things are.”

 

Aya looked at him, then looked back to narrowly return the car into the correct lane before they got sideswiped as a horn blared.   After a few minutes he spoke again.  “But you’d go back if you could.”

 

Yuuji sighed.  “I wish I could go back to before the accident that made everyone think I’d died.  But that’s not going to happen.  Things will settle down, eventually.  There’s just too much between us to let go completely.  We’re trying to keep it to friendship so we don’t wreck what’s left. And that’s really all you need to know,” he looked over at him.  “Food?”

 

“Food,” Aya agreed grimly. 

 

                *             *             *

 

                “The old lady isn’t going to be happy if she finds out,” Raven croaked in Doll’s ear. They were on their way to the markets while the sun was still climbing in the morning sky.   

               

                “It goes against my conscience, if what I’m thinking can be called that. Those people will come in through the West Gate.  That’s never good.  Things _look safe_ in that area.  That’s the biggest danger.”

 

                “Never a scrap left to pick at,” Raven agreed. 

 

                “Don’t be horrible!” she shooed him off her shoulder.  She shifted the woven wicker basket in her hands, then made up her mind.  If for any reason—she should _accidentally bump into someone_ on the way, and her way conveniently took her right past the Udon shop, she’d mention anyone _but_ the doctor.  She smiled to herself.  Sometimes it helped that her creator’s sister was too self absorbed to realize just how much self determination she’d been imbued with. 

 

                Doll didn’t mind so much being inherited as a piece of property; after all, she was safe in the Neuvenburg household, and her brief experience with being human (through a magic kiss of all things) had upset her thought processes way too much.  The important thing was keeping an eye on her late mistress’ younger sister and making sure the potential for damage was kept under control. 

 

                Raven circled higher and higher on the morning warmed air currents, keeping a sharp eye out for both over sized Golden Eagles and the occasional Pteranodon that wondered through from the dimensional gate in Chuuo Park.  They didn’t like to come down between the skyscrapers, but they did cruise high up and swoop down on unsuspecting birds, motorized kites, hang gliders, Vampires, and the occasional mutated flyer who hadn’t learned yet. 

 

                He spotted what he was after and cruised down again, landing on a lamp post along the path in front of Doll.  “There’s been an accident further up the street,” he strutted back and forth along the arm holding the light.  “You might want to slow down a bit until it’s clear.” He fluttered down to peck at something in a kerb side trash bin. 

 

                She nodded.  In other words, slow down until the Detective was a little more free to talk to, because he wasn’t at the Udon shop. 

 

                She dawdled (as often accused of), looking in shop windows, and wondering at the amount of stuff humans seemed to be in want, or need of to exist, and finally arrived as Det. Kabane was lighting up another of his horrible black cheroots.  The ambulance was just pulling away. 

 

                “These tourists are getting on my nerves,” he was telling the new detective Doll hadn’t met yet.  “We have enough problems without having to deal with this crap.  That’s five in two weeks!  Why isn’t someone warning these morons?”

 

                “Why Det. Kabane, good morning,” Doll curtsied prettily. 

 

                He gave her a skeptical look with his one good eye.  The left one was (or wasn’t) behind a patch strapped on with some serious leather straps.  “And here comes more trouble,” he growled.  “Get back to the office, Newbie, and get me some more bullets.  Don’t forget the silver and salt ones this time, either.  I want the rest of my breakfast.” 

 

               “Yes, Sir,” the other officer, a slight, light haired who looked just out of high school bowed and made himself scarce.

 

                “May I ask what that officers’ name is?” Doll glanced after him.  “We never seem to be properly introduced.”

 

                “Wouldn’t bother, they don’t last long,” Kabane said, striding back toward the Udon shop down the street.  “I’m amazed he’s made it three weeks.”

 

                She trotted after him.  “Detective, can you please stop for a moment?” she stated.

 

                He stopped short and turned to look down at her, cheroot burning at his side.  Shoulder length dreadlocks framed a square jawed face in need of a shave.  Like everyone else of any stature in Shinjuku now, he was out of time frame, and no questions asked, but his preference in clothing and manner were not those of 21st Century Japan, nor was the ‘hog leg shooting iron’ he carried on duty. Detective Kabane headed the Peculiar Crimes Squad.  ‘Peculiar’ being pretty much anything that involved monsters, mutants or magic.  He really didn’t want to hear about any more of all three until he’d had his roasted pork Udon this morning, and _that_ had been interrupted by yet more of the growing Spider Clan’s bullshit.  “What now?”

 

                “ _Soon_ ,” Doll said.  “Someone is looking for _him.”_ She gave him as serious a look as her childish could manage.Then she turned her big blue eyes toward the West Gate.  “They really need to see _him_.”

                He had a puff of his foul old fashioned cigar, thinking.  “If the mayor wasn’t so damned keen on having an official ‘witch’, I’d arrest that ridiculous old tart for interfering with society,” he rumbled.  He used his cigar hand to cover his mouth in case said old tart was spying.  “What are _we_ looking for?”

 

                 “Would you give this card to the people in the ambulance when you see them again?” she handed over one of Madam Neuvenberg’s cards.  “If they live, that is,” she said, smiling and curtsying. 

 

                He took the card and put it in the pocket of his jeans without any concern.  “Behave yourself, little miss,” he ordered sternly.  “I don’t want to catch you fighting in the streets again.”

 

                She laughed sweetly, curtseying again, then went on her way, her thought processers running much more clearer now that the problem was good as solved. 

 

                A couple of ‘bill collectors’ from a local gang saw her coming just in time to smack themselves flat up against a building, out of her way, hearts pounding as she walked by.  She raised her chin and ignored them, hand on the basket handle on her other arm. 

 

                At the Udon shop, Kabane put in another order for his usual to replace the one that had gone cold and been removed, and pulled the card out and read the back of it.  “Interesting,” he knocked the ashes off his cheroot.  “A small army, and yet another swordsman, hmm?  Damn trouble makers,” he stuffed the card back in his pocket and addressed himself to his huge bowl of breakfast. 


	18. 18

Chapter 18   Draft   

 

Yuuji let the very heavy tatami mat drop.  That made all five.  “No suspicious stains on the wood, no flattened, mummified bodies,” he reported.  “And yeah, that did look like transmission fluid in the garage.  Blood turns brown, transmission fluid stays red.  I think we’ve been had.”

 

“He did it on purpose,” Aya looked at him, sour pussed as always. 

 

“It’s a major step down from just shooting you,” Yuuji walked over to him.  “Relax, Aya,” he ordered gently.  “Are you really that superstitious?”

 

“With everything that’s happened lately?  Are you out of your mind to think something might _not_ go wrong?” Something made him sharply turn his head, frozen in his tracks like some little forest animal. 

 

“What?” Yuuji asked. 

 

“I heard a sound.  Like something being dropped.”

 

“Probably the wood beams cooling down for the night.  I stayed one place where the roof would go nuts every evening in summer after being under the hot sun all day. Come on, let’s take a bath in that nice big tub.   Might as well enjoy the place.”

 

Aya didn’t move.  He was doing mental calculations.  “It _is_ coming from the west side of the building.” 

 

Yuuji waited.  Another cracking pop sounded.  “There you see; it’s the wood.  Probably why they haven’t just torn it down.  These wooden frame places are getting pretty rare now; people don’t want to just mow them down any more.  Bath.  Now,” he caught him and hugged him to him, putting his forehead to Aya’s.  “I’ll _make_ you relax.”

 

Aya sullenly remained stiffly resistant for a few moments, then gave in.  “You’re always ordering me around lately.  Who made you my boss?”

 

Yuuji smiled, “Not your boss; your partner.  Think of it as curt suggestions that obeying will result in me being much more cuddly with you,” he sealed this with a kiss.

 

Aya thought this over.  “Just don’t expect me to obey you all the time.”

 

“Goes both ways, Mr. Hold a Sword to My Throat.  You’ve got to get over this rape culture thing you got going on there.”

 

“Oh, just shut up and take it like a man,” Aya kissed him, rather violently. 

 

*             *             *

 

The bath water hadn’t turned to rotten gobs of blood, hideous monsters hadn’t appeared in the mirror, nor had anything else unusual happened except that the building ‘settling’ noises had gotten more frequent.  Yuuji was pretty certain that was _all_ it was; the wooden elements of the building cooling off.  But yeah, it was rather annoyingly like someone was moving around in the attic or intermittently rapping on the walls. 

 

“This is _insane_ , when does it normally stop?” Aya demanded, shoving him away and pushing himself up on the futon, bracing himself on his arms and looking around the dimly lit room.  They’d only turned on the low lamp at the head of the futon on the floor.

 

Yuuji reached over to pick up his watch and look at it.  “Usually it starts an hour or so after sunset, when it starts to cool off, then stops after an hour or so.  But—it’s almost 10.”

 

BANG!

 

Aya turned his head.  “That came from the east side,” he stated.  “The side that’s been cool all day. And it’s getting _worse._ ” 

 

“Probably just a beam that’s slotted in on that side. Aya don’t be so paranoid,” he was slightly peeved to have his coitus interrupted. 

 

“You just said it’s been going on too long!” Aya accused.

 

“I didn’t, I _said_ it’s nearly 10.” 

 

“You said _‘but’_!  That means you think it’s been going on well past the normal time.” 

 

“Haha, you said Butt,” Yuuji couldn’t resist.  “Now give me some,” he grabbed Aya’s hip to pull him close again.

 

That got his face smartly slapped.  Aya got up and snatched up his jeans, putting them on. He bent down to pick up his sword and unsheathed it, throwing the sheath aside on the tatami.   

 

Yuuji flopped down on his back.  “He did this on purpose, I’m sure of it now,” he muttered.  “Aya, you can’t kill a ghost with a sword, even in a horror movie!” he called after him as he stalked out of the room.

 

“No, but I can kill the bastard who’s playing tricks on us!” Aya called back from the hallway. 

 

*             *             *

 

Yuuji rubbed his eyes over his coffee at the sidewalk café table.  Sleep?  Hah!  Aya had spent the night prowling the house, inside and out, chasing down the random sounds, growing more and more dangerous with that sword of his. 

 

Yuuji could just feel all that built up, back logged cum going stale in his balls.  If there was a grudge anywhere, it would be developing in his balls.  “Aya, if it was someone playing jokes, I swear to the gods, I’ll set out some mini-landmines tonight that will be triggered by anything weighing more than 18 kg.  If anyone is out there, they’ll lose a leg, okay?”

 

Aya scowled at him.  “And if it’s your precognitive ex boyfriend doing this to be funny?  He’ll side step all the booby traps.”

 

“I’ve known the guy since we were twelve, Aya; trust me, he’s not into ‘funny’.  Funny irritates him. The question is _why_ would someone do this, not just to us, but the previous owners and tenants all along?  If we’re going to get any sleep tonight, { _or laid, damn it_ } we’re going to have to deal with this today,” he took his sunglasses out of his jacket pocket and put them on. 

 

Aya snorted mildly in amusement at the sight.  “Now you look like the old you.”

 

“I _feel_ like the _old_ me,” Yuuji grumbled and picked at his croissant. 

 

Aya ate his ham and cheese quiche drizzled with fancy sauce and watched him speculatively.  “Wait a minute.  You’re not really twenty-four, are you?” 

 

“Nope,” Yuuji said.  “Keep in mind that I had no choice in the matter of my ID at the time.”

 

“How old _are_ you?” purple eyes narrowed.  In to those tight lips went another bite, pink little tongue licking off a crumb of crust.    

 

“Right now?  Eighty.” 

 

“I mean really,” Aya insisted. 

 

“Age-ist,” Yuuji said.  “Is that junk really that good or are you just eating it that way to torment me?”

 

“Eating it what way?” Aya stuck another forkful in his mouth and pulled the fork out slowly, licking the sauce off it lewdly as possibly while looking blandly innocent.  He sliced off another forkful and held it up threateningly.  “Tell me.”

 

“Twenty-nine,” Yuuji stated.  “ _Waiter!_ ”  He ordered a slice of the quiche, now that his stomach felt alive enough to handle it.  Two could play this game.  And if he know Aya’s hair trigger, he’d be getting rid of that problem ‘down there’ in no time.  

 

*             *             *

 

“Deja-vu,” Schuldig said, pushing the gurney with Fujimiya’s sister on it down the hall way to the elevator. 

 

“ _Oh shut up_!”

 

Schuldig grinned.  He knew how much Brad _hated_ that saying.  Two nurses got out of the elevator just as they reached it and looked at them curiously. 

 

Schuldig made them mind their own business and maneuvered the gurney into the elevator cabin.  “You look totally unbelievable in that uniform.  Slouch or something.” They were dressed as EMTs. 

 

“No,” Brad stated.   

 

“I suppose it can’t be helped.  I’m surprised you fooled the elders all that time with that permanent air of superiority.”

 

“If you want to get _into character_ , that’s your choice.  I’m here to kidnap a patient, not win an Oscar,” Brad stated. 

 

“And it’s sooo obvious,” Schuldig remarked.  “That’s why I’m saying slouch a little, look harried.  EMTs are always being called out; you should look like you expect the worst any minute, and people yelling at you to hurry it up or something.  You just look suspicious, and everyone thinks so.”

 

“Not playing that game,” Brad said, irritated. 

 

“You look like a man with a gun under his jacket who’s up to something.  Which is what you are,” Schuldig kept up the nagging, mainly because he was bored, and partially because he was watching for any Kritiker agents and his nerves were on edge. 

 

“Keep nagging me and I’ll put it down the front of your shorts and pull the trigger,” Brad warned.

 

“Kinky,” Schuldig said.  “Ground floor, 10 and 2, when the doors open.  How do you want to handle this?”

 

Brad pushed the button for the second floor, making the elevator stop as if pausing to let someone on.  He considered the probabilities unfolding.  Then pushed the button for the door to close and continue down.  “Knock them out before the door opens.  I don’t want to waste the bullets and have a police chase on our tail.”

 

“Boring,” Schuldig said, and readied his mind for the attack. 

 

“You may thank me for the bullet that’s not going to hit you right between the eyes later.”

 

Schuldig paled.  “Don’t _disturb_ me like that, I’m trying to concentrate!”

 

Brad shut his mouth and let him do so.  But there were times when he wished the red headed misery would consider other people needed to concentrate, too. 

 

Two down in the parking structure, and two more in a car near the exit; Kritiker had been moving agents into Tokyo from their other venues.  “Strap that thing down properly, I don’t want this turning into a farce,” Brad told Schuldig after he managed to get the wheels to collapse as the gurney was slid into the ambulance.  “Next time, take more time to read the worker’s minds and find out how to actually work the equipment, not how to fake being them.”

 

“Can we have the siren on?” Schuldig asked like a lunatic five year old.

 

Brad considered shooting him for the thousandth time. 

 

“Just asking!” Schuldig shut the doors and made certain they were latched properly.  When they were in the cab and properly belted in themselves, he looked at Brad as he steered the ambulance out of the parking bay.  “So, are you going to let them know we have her?”

 

Brad smiled.  It wasn’t a nice smile.  “I’m thinking about it.”

 

All Schuldig got was static.  He frowned, knowing this was going to be one of _those_ times. 

 

*             *             *

 

“You’re being ridiculous,” Yuuji stated, pulling off his shirt and throwing it at the only chair in the hotel room.  “We have a perfectly good house—,”

 

“ _Haunted_ ,” Aya stated, unbuckling and unzipping his boots. 

 

“Never mind that, just get your pants down,” he pulled a hair loop out of his pocket and tied his hair back into a pony tail, then unbuttoned and yanked down his own pants.

 

“You know I don’t like doing it with my clothes on,” Aya said, slipping off his black white trimmed t-shirt.  “Especially with my boots on.”

 

Yuuji remembered to kick his own boots off and squirmed out of his pants the rest of the way.  “Right now I could fuck you through a brick wall, never mind your damned clothes!”  He tackled him backward on to the bed and kissed him, then got him by the throat with his teeth and ran a hand down the front of him to get a handful of the Fujimiya inheritance. 

 

“Anh!” Aya gasped.  “Let me get my jeans off, you pig!”

 

Yuuji kissed him, tugging and pulling until Aya was hard in his hand, then slipped down to take him in his mouth. 

 

Aya grabbed at the bed spread and made strangled little cries. “Damn it, Yohji, stop it!” he begged.

 

Yuuji gave him one last serious suck and then let him slip out.  “Alright, but no dragging things out,” he wiped his mouth and rolled off him.

 

“Did you just drool on me?” Aya stated, wiping a smear of spit off his thigh and sitting up.  He shoved his jeans the rest of the way down past his knees and kicked them off. 

 

“Yes, I did,” Yuuji declared.  “Top, bottom, upside down or sideways, you’re getting fucked in the next two minutes, so make up your mind and assume the position.” 

 

“There you go, bossing me around again,” Aya said, remaining seated on the edge of the bed. 

 

“Clock’s ticking,” Yuuji warned, his hard on throbbing in his hand as he slathered on the lube. 

 

Aya stood up, “Get on the bed properly,” he said, giving himself a few teasing strokes and making sure he was being watched. 

 

Yuuji shifted himself with a squirm until he was in the middle of the mattress lengthwise.

 

Aya crept up on the bed on all fours, and kissed Yuuji’s sternum, then worked his way up to his chin with precise little kisses.  “Who do you love more?” he asked, looking into his eyes.  “Me?  Or him?”

 

Yuuji grabbed him and pulled that tight little ass down, finding and gently forcing his way in.  “I’d say things are slanting your way on the sexy meter,” he teased and rolled Aya onto his back, grappling behind his knees to pull them up, sliding in deep again. “Better hang on tight, you’re in a for a rough one,” he warned. 

 

Aya laughed and finally looked happy, which was incredibly sexy, Yuuji thought before his thinking shut down and his body took over. 

 

*             *             *

 

“I’ve seen her before,” Tot said, looking curiously at the girl on the gurney. 

 

“No you haven’t, they all look alike,” Schuldig said.  “That was Tomoe Sakura, this is Fujimiya Aya.  Look closer, see?  She’s a few years younger.”

 

Tot blinked, then looked more carefully.  She touched the girl’s dark hair with its oddly purple highlights.  “Wasn’t this the girl we took from the hospital?”

 

“Tot,” Schuldig said, “Things have been a little crazy the past few months, jah?  This is Fujimiya’s sister, who needs to see a special doctor.  She got her head banged up pretty bad and it left her like this for a few years.  Tomoe-chan was just drugged.”

 

Nagi stood behind Tot giving him a very skeptical look.  Probably one he’d learned from watching the person he was now turning it on. 

 

“Will she get well?” Tot asked.

 

“We can only hope, Ojou-chan,” Schuldig said.  “But for now, and decency’s sake, she’s going to share your room, so will you help me get this thing through the door?”

 

“What is wrong with Schuldig?” Nagi asked Brad in the kitchen. “He’s acting—human,” he shuddered as if something were crawling down his spine with icy little feet. 

 

“I often wonder,” Brad said, looking into the mostly empty refrigerator.  A large pink and white cake with slices cut out sat there, staring back at him.  That, a half empty jug of milk, some soy sauce and other liquid seasonings were about it.  “Oh for— here,” he pulled out his wallet.  “Go get some bento from the conbini.  I don’t care what, as long as it’s dead and cooked,” he handed Nagi a sheaf of bills.  “And whatever they have that one might call breakfast, too.”

 

Nagi held out his other hand and waggled his fingers.

 

Brad sighed and put more money into that one as well.  “Tokyo would be a wonderful place if they could manage cheaper food.”

 

“Then it would be New York,” Nagi counted the money and stuffed it in to his pocket.  “And we’d really be in trouble.”

 

“Well the less said about that, the better,” Brad muttered.  “Something—noodly,” he added as Nagi headed for the door. 

 

 

It wasn’t until he was half way to the corner that Nagi realized Brad hadn’t answered his question.  Some things never changed, he sighed.

 

                *             *             *

 

“Haunted,” Aya stated before Yuuji could finish his sentence. 

 

Brad had not failed to notice that this time he was not armed. 

 

“I’m having my doubts,” Yuuji continued.  “Seriously, all that noise, that’s not normal.”

 

“But you didn’t actually _see_ anything?” Brad insisted.

 

“No and nu—hh—Aya here,” he barely stopped himself from using that term before it got him killed, “chased around all night trying to catch who ever might have been playing tricks, too.  Not happy, Brad,” he said in a warning voice. 

 

“Sarazawa,” Brad said in a tone he hadn’t heard in weeks, “Might I have a word in private?”

 

“No,” Aya said flatly.  “You can’t.”

 

Brad’s eyes remained on Yuuji.

 

“Probably not a good idea,” Yuuji said after a moment’s consideration. 

 

Brad crossed his arms and sighed.  “Whatever is going on in that house, it’s not anything I can detect with my talent, nor Schuldig with his.  I was rather hoping Fujimiya’s talent would flush it out.”

 

“ _On purpose_ ,” Aya said, glaring at Yuuji.

 

“You know that only works if someone tries to kill him,” Yuuji gave up trying to be discrete about it.  “If this thing can’t do anything more than make noise, then it’s not going to seriously try to do anything to Aya, or it’s too weak to do something.  What is this really all about?”

 

 Brad smiled. In fact he almost grinned, but that would have been too much.  “Just testing.  By the way, Fujimiya; either your sister or Yuuji.  You can keep him and I’ll kill her, or you can take her and go now.”

 

“So, you do have a sense of humor,” Aya said coldly. 

 

Yuuji was looking at _him_ now with a not so pleased expression.  “You do realize this means he has your sister, don’t you?”

Aya blinked, surprised. 

 

“Yes, actually,” Brad said.  “Schuldig is holding a gun to her head in the other room, waiting for my order.  Shall we try again?”

 

Aya looked at Yuuji in consternation. 

 

“Right up there with bunny boiling, Brad,” Yuuji drawled.  “Stop this.”

 

“If it comes down to him or you, who do _you_ think will get hurt?” Brad asked him seriously.  “Your mission in Tokyo, the explosion; he’s already destroyed us.  I won’t let him destroy you.”

 

Aya caught Yuuji’s t-shirt sleeve, bunching it up in his fingers.  “No,” he said.  “No.  I can’t—I won’t let you go.”  He looked at Crawford, angry tears forming. “She won’t feel it.  Just make it quick.”

 

“Aya…” Yuuji said softly in distress. 

 

He shook his head.  “No.” 

 

Yuuji put a hand over the one on his arm and squeezed gently.  “Brad, you’re being an ass!”

 

“Sometimes one has to,” Brad said calmly.  “I have to be certain he won’t sacrifice you to save that useless little girl in there.”

 

Aya glared at him.  “If anything happens to him, you can kill me, too!” he said angrily. 

 

“I thought that once myself,” Brad said after a moment.  “Alright,” he turned to walk away a few steps.  “Enough silly drama,” he said over his shoulder.  “I’m satisfied.  We’ll take the girl in to find this doctor.  But if he can’t help her, you’ll be stuck with that burden until she dies, and Sarazawa doesn’t deserve that.”

 

“You let me deal with that,” Yuuji wished he _dared_ to at least go and hold him for just a moment, but he didn’t.  If anything, he knew damned well what to do to defuse a bomb.  “Let’s just leave things the way they are for now,” he said gently. 

 

Brad nodded, “I suppose that’s best.” He decided his glasses needed cleaning again. 

 

Yuuji took Aya by the shoulders and turned him to face him. He also knew when to run interference.  “Aya, thank you,” he said very quietly.  “I’m not sure I deserve that much from you, but thank you.”

 

Aya swallowed hard.  “I understand,” he whispered.  “I hate him, but I understand.”

 

Yuuji just hoped he could somehow avoid telling him what _his_ talent really was.  He wasn’t so certain Aya would understand that at all.

 

 

 

Part 5 of Virus will show up after a bit of vacation. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
